


Sup, Cuz?

by VenusTheMarvelTurtle



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ah yes I love it, Bi-Curiosity, Boys Kissing, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming of Age, Cousin Incest, Dubious Consent, Ebonics, Erik being a sexy asshole, Erik is Mr Steal Yo Girl, F/M, FINAL PAIRING IS TCHERIK, Family Drama, Growing Up, He'll Steal Yo Man Too, M/M, Mild Language, Minor Original Character(s), Mommy Ramonda, NJADAKA, Nakiya ain't having it, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Touching, Poor W'Kabi, Rivalry, Scarification, Sleepy Cuddles, Slow Burn, T'Challa is so over this, Teen Angst, That throneroom scene tho, The yellow suit looks like a jaguar guys come on, UST, Unamused T'Challa, W'Kabi didn't sign up for this, Xhosa and Afrikkans, Zuri is concerned, say it with me, some blood, somewhat canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-24 08:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13807770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenusTheMarvelTurtle/pseuds/VenusTheMarvelTurtle
Summary: (AU, in which Erik is brought back to Wakanda. Rating WILL go up.)The technique that his father calls 'diplomacy' doesn't often work with his strange, foreign (often times mean) cousin, so T'Challa resigns himself to mostly ignore N'Jadaka once the boy arrives- treat him as if he were part of a tapestry on the wall, as it were.That becomes increasingly difficult as the years pass, and N'Jadaka becomes determined to be noticed, primarily by T'Challa, and in only the worst ways.





	1. Act 1: The Crack (008: 'Bloody Waters')

**Author's Note:**

> My boyfriend begged me not to do it...'don't turn this into something like your weird turtle stories ', he said. 
> 
> But y'all... that UST was through the ROOF! I HAD to do it! And they're cousins, so that means dark, forbidden pining- my absolute FAVORITE. It was like telling Pandora not to open the box.
> 
> There will be Xhosa used in this story, since apparently that's the main language Wakandan was based off of and integrated with, so translations will be at the end of each chapter.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Erik is the crack in the otherwise normal, placid surface that was ten-year old T'Challa's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters include the names of songs from the BP soundtrack that I thought best matched the theme.  
> Please comment!

T'Challa remembers that he had been at the front of their group, first in line to meet his father and Zuri the day they returned from California.

He remembers how nauseously excited he'd been to hear that not only was baba returning with the stolen vibranium (something he wasn't really supposed to know about, but no one, not even the Queen Mother, could completely stop the son of the Panther from eavesdropping at the edges of grown-up war meetings and Tribal Council sessions), but he was also bringing back something that was far more interesting to T'Challa's 10-year-old sensibilities than lumps of common rock. 

But a _cousin_ \- now _that_ was something. He had a _cousin._  An _American_ cousin. He could hardly believe it when he was told.

 _N'Jadaka._ The name itself was an intriguing contradiction, foreign and yet wonderfully familiar. T'Challa couldn't begin to imagine what kind of person belonged to such a name, existed between two things so vastly different. 

Standing on the landing pagoda of the main palace, waiting for his father's ship to appear over the horizon, T'Challa knew his excitement wasn't totally unselfish. He had relatives in other tribes, technically, but none so close in age and blood as N'Jadaka would be. And it was difficult to find genuine, unjealous playmates for a young Prince. W'Kabi was a great friend, but he was still only one W'Kabi.

And the Border Tribe boy had been understandably solemn and withdrawn since the bombing attack...which T'Challa, while he empathized completely, didn't quite know how to deal with yet.

"When will they arrive?" he blurted, bouncing inelegantly on the balls of his feet and trying to force his watering eyes to stay trained on the early morning sun, hazy in the dust lingering over the tall canopies that obstructed his view. "It usually does not take this long."

"They will arrive when they arrive, young prince," Najibi muttered calmly, smirking down at her charge. The pale light glittered impressively off of her bare scalp and the ringed collar of her armor as she moved. T'Challa didn't know how old she was, but her features always seemed to be untouched by aging as if by some strange magic that the Dora possesed. "Time passes slowly when one is nervous. "

Her posture was strong and relaxed, but then T'Challa had never seen the unshakeable general of the Dora Milaje as otherwise. She had been relegated to watching T'Challa while his mother minded Shuri- still practically an infant, his sister had been squalling and fussing inconsolably since the night before. 

(Looking back, T'Challa would think Shuri's sudden and persistent bad temper might have been an omen from Bast herself, regarding the utter plague upon his life that the ship would bring with it from Oakland.)

"Do you think he will like me?"

"I cannot know, my prince."

"Do you think he will like Wakanda?"

"I'm sure he will, my prince."

"Do you think-"

"T'Challa," Najibi interrupted smoothly, tapping her middle finger pensively on the shaft of her spear. The metal made small, clear ringing sounds when it met her nail. "Whatever must be, will be. I am not a shaman or a prophet, but this boy is of your blood and the blood of Wakanda. We would not be remiss to hope for the best, I think."

They waited for a few more moments in near-contented silence while T'Challa fidgeted and fretted and blinked black sun dots from his vision, until one of the dots refused to dissipate and instead began to solidify into a shiny speck that drew closer and closer to their location.

"I see them, Najibi!" T'Challa exclaimed, raising himself up on the toes of his silk shoes and lifting an arm over his head. "Overhead the Mound!"

The ship was upon them in a few efficient seconds, touching down gently and near soundlessly on the landing platform like some great silvery owl. T'Challa tried to contain his smile as the hatch began to hiss open, bringing with it a rush of air and his father's steady tones.

Dressed in the lower half of his Panther suit and minus his helm and gloves, T'Chaka was not smiling as he exited the craft, but his lips turned up at the corners when he beheld his son and general waiting for him. "Is that my son I see?" he said, striding regally away from the airship and reaching down to enlace long brown fingers with T'Challa's small, smooth hands after sharing a quick salute with Najibi. "You have grown another two inches since my departure, I believe."

" _Mholo_ , baba." T'Challa dipped his head respectfully, then just as quickly raised it to attempt to peer around the King. "Is he with you?" he asked in low, enthusiastic tones. "Can I see him?"

Had he been more observant, he might have seen the tired pain and exhaustion creased deeply into the skin around the eyes of his father, or the concern and weariness weighing down his shoulders for a split second before T'Chaka straightened his spine and masked the emotions on his face.

The King did not have to ask whom T'Challa was referring to- he would have been a fool to think that news of N'Jobu's son would have escaped T'Challa's notice.

"He is with Zuri now," T'Chaka explained, turning to face the ship and pulling T'Challa alongside him. "Represent yourself well, T'Challa. A first impression cannot be made twice."

T'Challa rocked back on his heels and smoothed his tunic down over his knees, stomach tight and twisting with nerves. He wanted to send up a hasty prayer to Bast that all would go well, but his mind suddenly couldn't formulate the words. 

What felt like an eternity later, Zuri appeared in the mouth of the ship, bearing the same exhausted countenance that T'Chaka had. He leveled a kind, if strained smile at the young prince, but T'Challa only had eyes for the slight boy plodding along unhappily behind him.

What he saw shocked him slightly. N'Jadaka looked... _miserable_ , the exact opposite of what T'Challa had expected from someone seeing Wakanda for the first time. His face was swollen and splotched with red, tear marks going crusty in the corners of his eyes and on his cheeks. His expression was more of a glare than anything else, and his chest heaved as though he had just finished sobbing. He seemed about seven or eight years old, but he was tall for his age, which made him seem even skinnier than he already was. 

T'Challa was startled out of his observations by T'Chaka's hand on his shoulder. "N'Jadaka, this is my son, your cousin Prince T'Challa."

Despite his initial surprise at his cousin's appearance, T'Challa gave what he hoped was a friendly smile and bowed a little at the waist. " _Mholo_ , N'Jadaka." he said quietly, crossing his arms in a salute. "Welcome to Wakanda." 

N'Jadaka crossed his arms as well, but not in a salute of any kind. And he didn't bow. "'S _Erik_." he muttered sharply, enunciating the American name as if T'Challa had offended him by using the Wakandan title. 

T'Challa blinked at his pointed tone, but held on to his composure in the face of N'J- Erik's- hostility. "E-Erik," he started again. "It is good to have you with us," he tried, attempting and failing to meet the smaller boy's eyes. 

Erik looked at his threadbare shoes in favor of T'Challa's face and gave a small, unconcerned shrug. "Why're you wearin' a dress?" he asked bluntly, raising his sleeve to rub at his running nose. 

T'Challa's tongue froze against the roof of his mouth at the rude question, and the strange quality of Erik's speech. He sounded crude and almost slurred, pronouncing some words strangely and others just barely enough to count.

"I, um..." he stammered, just barely keeping himself from glancing at his father for help, "It is a r-royal...I am...not a dress..."

His sentence trailed off into muted horror when he noticed the splashes of drying blood that stained the hem of Erik's faded, too-large jacket and the knees of his holey denim pants, tarring the boy's thin grey knees like war paint.  

What horrible thing had happened to mark him so?

Thankfully, Najibi stepped forward and essentially rescued T'Challa from further embarrassment.

"N'Jadaka, young prince, my name is Najibi, of the Dora Milaje." the warrior woman said, saluting briskly so that her bangles chimed like bells. "I will take you now to meet your aunt, Queen Mother Ramonda."

That time, T'Challa noticed how Erik flinched at the mention of his Wakandan name. "I ain't going 'less Uncle James comes." he stated flatly, shoulders hunched as though he were cold, red-rimmed eyes narrowed as if daring the warrior woman to make him move.

T'Challa opened his mouth to ask the obvious question- who in Bast's name was _Uncle James?_ \- but Zuri finally spoke up and intercepted him. "I will stay with the King for a while, N'Jadaka. But I will rejoin you shortly," he promised, placing a supportive (and slightly coaxing) hand between Erik's shoulder blades. 

Erik followed behind Najibi without another word, clinging to the straps of his patched knapsack as though it contained his very life force and he was protecting it from theft.

T'Challa, Zuri and T'Chaka watched them leave, vanishing down the pagoda and into the palace doors until they were out of sight. 

Once he was gone, Zuri heaved a heavy sigh and turned to T'Chaka. "I will tell the Council of what we have discussed," he said quietly, "and then I will go to him. With Bast's grace, this will work out."

T'Chaka nodded once, and then Zuri took his leave as well.

"...He does not like me." T'Challa pointed out sadly, picking at a loose silver thread on his tunic. "I do not understand, baba. What did I do wrong?"

T'Chaka sighed and turned T'Challa around to face him, tilting his chin up so they were staring at each other eye to eye. The weariness was back in his features and in his posture, and the sun glinted off of a patch of grey hair at his temple.

"T'Challa," the King said haltingly, and T'Challa was stunned all over again, because it was the first time he had ever seen his wise father struggle for words, "your uncle...N'Jadaka's father...was lost to an enemy. We were too late to save him." The emotions that ran through T'Chaka's steady brown eyes were enough to nearly bring tears to T'Challa's own.

Suddenly, the blood and tears made sense. T'Challa barely remembered N'Jobu, but he could hardly conceptualize the idea that T'Chaka would not be around forever, let alone suddenly finding his father cold and breathless one horrible night, stolen from his world by someone who would thereafter become his worst enemy.

"The boy...Erik found him. He is a stranger in a new land, one who has seen much, lost much, and experienced little tenderness. He will come around, and in time, you will be as close as brothers."

The King's smile was as close to reassuring as T'Challa was certain his father could muster. "Trust in me, my son. It will get better."

* * *

 It didn't get better. In fact, it got worse. 

No matter how hard T'Challa tried to make N'J- Erik- feel welcome in Wakanda, in their home, he was met with emotional rebukes (and sometimes physical ones.)

And Bast, did he try, with every fiber of his being. The boy was determined to be as unhappy as possible, and anyone who attempted to change his outlook and his attitude was subject to the full brunt of that attitude. 

Erik could hardly manage a respectable hello for Ramonda, and just barely held in his disregard for T'Challa's infant sister. He scowled when he was told that he and T'Challa were meant to share a room until proper accommodation could be made, then refused to hold T'Challa's hand when the elder prince offered to show him where they'd be sleeping.

Erik spent the rest of that day curled in the bed they'd found for him, staring at the royal ring cradled in his palm and trembling periodically.

His countenance wasn't improved in any way the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that, and so on. Erik complained about the food, about the heat, about the way people stared as he walked by, disparaging everything and everyone he could with vicious intent. He would only respond to his birth name when Zuri said it, and even then he did it with extreme reluctance. He spurned every advance made by T'Challa and W'Kabi for him to play with them, but appeared irritated at his exclusion whenever they were around him. 

Eventually, his vocal discontent gave way to silent, morose behavior that alienated him from nearly everyone except Zuri. As the weeks turned into months, and Erik's angry melancholy refused to fade, T'Challa found himself at a painful crossroads. 

W'Kabi had always teased him by calling him "Prince Soft-Heart", and the situation with Erik proved him to be true. Every move he made towards Erik was met with snaps, snarls, glowers, and on good days indifference, and still he tried, almost to the point of desperation. He didn't want his first major failure to be his own cousin, but there was just no pleasing Erik.

While they slept in the same room, and even once they were moved to loosely adjoining quarters, T'Challa noticed two things. For one, he noticed that small trinkets, sweets and baubles would vanish mysteriously from his things. 

The cause was obvious, and though it grated on his nerves and his sense of ownership and privacy, T'Challa tried not to let it annoy him too much. He reasoned that Erik had had his entire life stolen from him- what was the use in complaining about a lifted sweet or pretty bead? He refrained from telling his parents, or the Dora, hoping that maybe Erik would see his understanding as generosity and that it would go towards forging a relationship between them that wasn't contentious. 

He only mentioned it once to Erik when a small golden cat figurine that had been a present from Zuri's trip to China went missing from his bedside table. As forgiving as he knew he should be...well, he was ten. And he'd really liked that figurine. 

"Did you take my present from Zuri, the cat totem?"

"Naw."

"It's just...I can not find it, and he gave it to us only yesterday. You are the closest to my room..."

"Maybe it's up ya butt and around the corner."

At this point, T'Challa was having a hard time keeping himself from matching Eric's scowl. "You don't have to steal anything," he offered. "If you want to borrow something, or if you want something, just ask."

"I ain't steal nothing, fool. Lemme alone 'fore I come over there and smack you."

T'Challa felt his fingers curling into instinctual fists by his hips. "If you do not stop stealing from me, I am going to tell mama and baba. Wakandans do not steal from one another." he threatened mildly.

Pride and sympathy officially wounded, T'Challa marched away and down the hall, to a shout of "crybaby!" behind him. 

That was the first time he allowed himself to be angry at Erik. The thefts decreased in frequency, but never truly stopped, and T'Challa could never find it within himself to tell on Erik.

The second thing he noticed was that Erik suffered from nightmares the likes of which T'Challa had never witnessed.

During the boy's first night in Wakanda, T'Challa had been ripped out of his sleep by the terrified thrashing of the body in the bed next to his, Erik's choked off cries of horror and anguish only slightly muffled by the blankets clenched between his teeth. 

T'Challa, of course, had leapt out of slumber and rushed to Erik's side, only to be batted angrily away once Erik awoke. This pattern repeated itself nearly every night during those first few months, to the point where T'Challa dreaded bedtime because of what he knew was coming for them both in Erik's dreams. 

It came to a head one night in the middle of the rainy season, while a storm raged outside of Wakanda's borders. The nation had long since been able to control the weather in its regions, and the climate control systems in the Golden City of Birnin Zana were highly advanced and incredibly reliable. But a moderate amount of rain was allowed in from time to time to refresh the earth and plants, and the entirety of the humidity was impossible and impractical to keep out completely. 

T'Challa awoke startled in the pitch black of his room that night, bedclothes sticking to his clammy skin and heart pounding painfully against the barrier of his ribs. He had at first assumed that it was the furious booming of thunder in the distance that woke him up, but he quickly realized that was not the case. 

"...Erik?" he whispered, squinting in disbelief at the small silhouette outlined in the light spilling through his open door. From what he could see, Erik was barefoot, and shaking. 

"Erik, what has happened?" 

The boy in his doorway shuffled his feet and shifted nervously from side to side, clearly battling fear and shame. "'S hot," he said eventually, voice breaking with poorly swallowed tears. "It ain't never this hot at home." He seemed to want to say something else, but he didn't have the words. 

 "You cannot sleep?" T'Challa guessed, swinging his feet down to touch his toes to the cool floor. "Is it the dreams again?"

Erik didn't reply, but he didn't need to. The heavy pause spoke volumes.

T'Challa lifted the corner of his blanket and gestured invitingly. "You can sleep with me tonight," he said gently. "I do not mind."

"'S hot." Why he'd come to T'Challa's room just to decline the offer he'd known he'd receive, T'Challa didn't know. But he suspected Erik's pride forced the boy to do things the hard way.

It was almost humorous, if it wasn't so sad. 

"I do not mind, cousin." he repeated. 

After a few more seconds, Erik made a huffy sort of sniffling noise and padded the rest of the way into T'Challa's room to slip beneath the offered blanket, curling up almost immediately against T'Challa's back like a small, nestling animal. His bones stuck out underneath his skin and dug into T'Challa through his dressing gown, making it painfully obvious that Erik hadn't been eating properly.  

 _'Prince Soft-Heart,'_ he heard W'Kabi's words teasing him, in his thoughts.  _'He will treat you no better for this.'_

"Do you want me to sing?" T'Challa asked hesitantly, shaking W'Kabi's taunts out of his mind. "Did your mother...did Uncle ever sing Wakandan songs to you? It might help. Mama used to do it for me."

"....Yeah," Erik replied, and, after a moment of tense silence, so low T'Challa could hardly hear him even as close as they were to one another, "...please."

T'Challa turned around so that Erik was tucked against his chest and pillowed his chin in the boy's coarse, cropped hair, taking a deep breath to begin humming the first few lines of "Bast and Hanuman" into the stuffy darkness. 

That hair had begun to smell like Moroccan sandalwood and rose oil, but the skin beneath still held the aroma of someplace far away from their perfect corner of the world. 

"Tay-Challa?"

T'Challa withheld a smile at the butchering of the pronunciation of his name. It was, after all, better than 'Mufasa', or 'Booty scratcher', or any of the other awful names Erik had called him. "Hm?"

"You better not tell nobody 'bout this." Erik warned, clearly trying to sound as intimidating as an undersized eight year old could. Still, his voice was small and vulnerable, nearly swallowed by the blanket covering his mouth, effectively taking the strength out of his threat. 

T'Challa's smile melted as quickly as it had formed.  _Prince Soft-Heart, indeed,_ he sighed to himself.

"I will not," he said aloud, closing his eyes wearily and resuming his song. Erik balled his fists in the neckline of T'Challa's sleeping shirt and was dozing in minutes, his breaths intermingled with soft wet snuffling. 

They never did speak of that night again. Eventually, as the months turned to years, Erik's somber, volatile mood became as routine to deal with as stepping over a crack in the floor every day- unavoidable and inconvenient, but mundane and something everyone had resigned themselves to doing.

Of course, it couldn't stay that way, much to T'Challa's encumbrance and annoyance. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Mholo": Hello
> 
> Originally I had Okoye waiting with T'Challa in the beginning, but then I thought, "if Okoye is W'Kabi's lover, they're relatively the same age, and T'Challa and W'Kabi grew up together." She'd be a teenager at the most during this time, or maybe closer to their age.
> 
> If anybody even still shares this anymore, or cares, the songs I listened to on repeat while writing this was:
> 
> "Bringing it down", Starset  
> "Killmonger", BP instrumental soundtrack (and the other two or three tracks featuring his theme)  
> "Lurk", The Neighborhood
> 
> Please comment! It's my story fuel!


	2. Act 2a: The Gap (012: 'Big Shot')

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the crack expands to become a gap of increasing danger. (Alternatively, Erik ruins something before it even starts.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, pretty please comment? I would love it so much! Also thank you to everybody that left feedback, it gave me so much confidence!
> 
> PS, I am super dead at everybody's reaction to "Erik is Mr Steal Yo Girl" LOLZ. He actually lives up to that tag in this (super long) chapter. This will be an act told in multiple parts, because a lot of stuff happens during their teenage years. Erik is 14 in this, and W'Kabi and T'Challa are 15 going on 16.
> 
> Slight warnings for this part include language (Erik has a potty mouth and always will), homophobic language, sexual situations, and dub-con towards the end of the act.

Needless to say, T'Challa quickly understood that the technique his father called 'diplomacy' didn't work with his strange, foreign (often times mean) cousin. Despite his imaginings of a better relationship with Erik, it became clear that the other boy would never allow them to achieve the closeness T'Chaka no doubt envisioned for the young princes.

Soft-hearted though he may have been, his patience was not unlimited. So T'challa resigned himself to mostly ignore N'Jadaka- to treat him as if he were part of a tapestry on the wall, a design on the background of T'Challa's life. 

It worked, for a while. Until it didn't. 

Time moved forward as time does, and the simple joys of childhood faded into the shifting experiences and mounting responsibilities of young adulthood for Wakanda's heirs (Most of them, anyway. Shuri still had the luxury of a few more careless, happy years by Ramonda's side.) T'Challa's duties and expectations increased by the day, and he met the new challenges with an outward calm that belied the stress within. 

Council meetings, scholarly sessions, drills, training, lessons in democracy and ruling- No matter how reasonably T'Chaka led his son into learning the routes of leadership, T'Challa was increasingly aware that he had begun to be molded into a king. 

It would have been easier to balance these new responsibilities with the turmoil of adolescence if T'Challa had not also had to deal with the distracting antics of his immediate cousin.   

Somewhere between his thirteenth and fourteenth birthday, Erik- for he still only grudgingly accepted the use of his Wakandan name, and only then by Ramonda, T'Chaka, and Zuri- underwent a drastic change. He went from hardly managing a few mouthfuls of food at mealtimes to shoveling down sustenance in the most undignified ways possible; he became loud and brash where before he'd been withdrawn and closed off. 

He abruptly went from trying to blend into the background to being irrevocably front and center. 

Those changes in routine wouldn't have been so jarring if they also didn't go along with a sudden alteration in demeanor, and definitely not one for the better. His impenetrable, venemous depression evolved into smoldering arrogance and bristling offhandedness. His attitude became that of someone who believed the world owed him something, and yet he acted as if he were an unwilling prisoner in his own land. 

The King and Queen Mother he treated with barely distinguishable respect, at least. But he started to relish breaking rules simply for shock value, and amongst his peers, his swagger was nearly unpalatable. He did things with his hair and clothes to gain attention, be it positive or negative, and he scoffed at tradition and decency in a way that left the Council muttering amongst themselves. 

Shuri was the only one that seemed to appreciate Erik's dismissal of custom. As she grew from a pudgy-cheeked toddler into a whip-smart child, sparkling with energy and intelligence, she trailed behind Erik's rebelliousness like a puppy, totally enamored with him. She found him funny, and different, and refreshing, so he tolerated her, and she adored him ever the more for it even if he had the tendency to treat her badly the way he did everyone else. 

If T'Challa had thought maturity would lend some padding between his and Erik's combativeness, he was sorely mistaken. For some reason, most of Erik's newfound cockiness and spite was directed at T'Challa, effectively deteriorating their shaky peace until it resembled a war of petty siege.

They were rivals in nearly everything they did- studies, sparring, recognition, Bast name it. Two more opposite people in Wakanda there had never been- while T'Challa grew up lean, quick, demure and observant, Erik threw himself with relish into War Dog training, turning himself into a honed brute of a warrior as if to spite his cousin's scholarly disposition.

Even W'Kabi, who had stuck by T'Challa's side through their childhood, admitted that Erik would make a fine killer one day. 

"He runs border patrols with us," W'Kabi told T'Challa one swelteringly hot day, as they both leaned against the rhino pens at the outskirts of Birnin Zana and snacked on num-num berries in the shade of a supply hut. "Some of the rookies do not even want to spar with him anymore- he fights as if he is fighting for his life, like a man driven insane. Are we certain there's no Jabari blood in him?"

"He is dramatic," T'Challa grumbled, rolling a plump crimson berry between his fingers. "He likes thinking that everyone is afraid of him."

W'Kabi huffed out a laugh and nudged T'Challa in the shoulder gently, deep brown irises glittering with good humor at T'Challa's expense. "You two are always at each other's throats," he said, raising a hand to his brow to shield his gaze from the sun's glare. "I think you need to duke it out, one good time, get it out of your systems. A Golden Tribe battle to the death would certainly liven things up around here."

T'Challa spun his eyes around in their sockets. "It would solve my problems one way or another," he agreed. "But I do not need a preview of challenge day, whenever it comes. I'm sure he will have more than enough fun trying to rip my heart out then."

W'Kabi stifled a snicker. "That, and the Queen Mother would resurrect you both, just to murder you again for fighting in the first place." He bit down on a berry with relish, and T'Challa tried not to stare at the clean, moist streams the juices made on his friend's dark skin as it trailed over his chin and down to his throat and chest. 

W'Kabi was his closest friend- the last thing T'Challa needed was for the border tribe boy to notice how fervently T'Challa's eyes lingered on the scarlet pulp turning his lips bright, shiny red, or the way his tribal scars highlighted the dramatic lift of his cheekbones. T'Challa himself still wasn't completely certain when he'd started realizing these things or why, but giving in to the whims of his unruly body wasn't worth potentially ruining years of friendship.

He told himself that he imagined the glances he received in return, and that W'Kabi's grip didn't, in fact, linger a few seconds too long on his wrists and waist when they sparred, and that it was exertion, not interest, that flushed his friend's face when they changed together after morning exercise sessions. There was no reason to think that W'Kabi felt the same, or that he would ever invite T'Challa to run his fingers down his spine to make him shiver, or let him suck the taste of fruit juice from his tongue... 

"We're sparring with the Dora initiates today," W'Kabi tossed out, drawing T'Challa back from his musings. The Border Tribe boy was checking his Kimoyo bracelet, squinting at a glowing, ephemeral blue time projection hovering above his palm. "Did you want to come and watch?"

T'Challa's lips curled over his teeth in a mocking grin. For all that W'Kabi had tried to make that statement sound unconcerned, T'Challa knew the truth. "Come and watch you get tongue-tied in front of Okoye, _and_ watch her put you in the dirt? I wouldn't miss it for the world."

W'Kabi blushed and shoved him again, slightly harder. " _Yitya ikaka,_ Prince Soft-Heart," he shot back. "Let us not pretend you don't drool like an imbecile whenever that River Tribe girl comes around."

"Nakiya is just a friend!"

"To your great sorrow, no doubt!"

T'Challa threw the rest of his berries at him, and W'Kabi jumped to put him in a weak headlock, both of them giggling the entire time. They were so caught up in their pretend scuffle, they didn't hear the footsteps until it was too late. 

"Ooh, shit. Am I interruptin' somethin'?" 

T'Challa's heart dropped into his stomach as his mood sank like a chunk of vibranium tossed into a pool. He and W'Kabi scrambled to their feet and came face to face with the last person T'Challa had wanted to see that day, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his intentionally distressed tan cargo pants and mouth twisted into a smug, irritating smirk. 

' _Of course, of_ course _it had to be him.'_   His cousin had developed a truly vexing habit of showing up at the exact moment that he wasn't wanted, at least by T'Challa. 

"My prince," W'Kabi greeted earnestly, tilting his chin downward and drawing his forearms together over his breast. T'Challa merely inclined his head coolly, thankful that his status as elder prince meant that he didn't  _technically_ have to acknowledge Erik's position (especially out of view of his parents). 

"Man, y'all be out here like Keenan and Kel. Can't catch one without the other," Erik snorted, tucking one of his pinned up locks behind his ear. Small gold and vibranium beads were woven into the body of the braids, somehow managing to be dazzling without being overly gaudy. 

For every pound of muscle that T'Challa put on, Erik put on two. He was a good three inches or so shorter than T'Challa, but he made up for it in width. He'd also started to grow facial hair in greater quantities, which annoyed T'Challa, who was a year older at fifteen and struggled to maintain a few patches of beard, to no end. 

"I thought you had a lesson to attend with Zuri this afternoon." T'Challa hedged, hoping that the sentiment of  _please go do that right now_   was sufficiently subtle in his voice. 

"I'm skippin'," Eric replied easily. "Zuri won't mind."

"Baba will," T'Challa pushed, wishing that the threat of the King's displeasure would have some sort of impact on his wild cousin. 

It didn't, naturally. "Only if you rat me out, Tay-Tay," Erik shot back, giving him a lopsided leer. "I'm trainin' with the War Dogs in a hour anyway, figured I'd get out here early. You could join in if you wanted, but that kinda roughhousin' don't really interest you, do it cuz?"

T'Challa felt his eyelid twitch and just barely restrained himself from rubbing it, refusing to give Erik the satisfaction. "Do not call me that," he grumbled, ignoring the way W'Kabi's shoulders shook with silent chuckles beside him. "And I have better things to do than watch you bash in some poor child's head for your own satisfaction."

Erik smiled fully then, teeth sharp and white in a predatory expression. "You got one weak ass stomach, Tay-Tay. I'on't even rough 'em up that bad, if I'm havin' a good day." 

Another eye twitch, and T'Challa's irritation boiled a few degrees warmer in his gut. "Do _not_ -"

"Speakin' of satisfaction," Erik continued loudly, striding between them to throw an arm around W'Kabi's neck. "Who you been mackin' on, W'Kabi?"

W'Kabi stared at him in confusion, until Erik gestured to his still-reddened lips. "Eh? Oh! No." The border tribe boy flushed and wiped his hand self consciously over his mouth. "It is juice. We were eating Num-Num."

Erik's beaming faded only slightly, and T'Challa's hackles rose a bit when he saw his cousin give him a sideline glance. "Right. Num-Num."

Something cold and hard knotted up behind T'Challa's lungs. He didn't like the glint in Erik's eyes or the knowing tilt to his grin, but how could he possibly have known-...?

( _Sometimes it frightened T'Challa, more than he cared to admit, how quickly and accurately Erik could sniff out things he'd rather remained hidden, how effortlessly he could see through T'Challa's carefully constructed fronts.There were times when he would pluck notions and thoughts out of T'Challa's eyes like hairs from his scalp, and he hated it with a passion.)_

It wasn't that he was worried about being shamed or punished for his thoughts- Wakanda had long since evolved past the bigoted ideas about same-sex relations of lesser places. The general agreement was that there were too many advancements, too many more important problems for a society to worry about and apply effort to than obsessing over what people did in their own bedrooms. 

The fact that ERIK was the one who potentially knew was the problem. Erik would make his life hell over the knowledge worse than a thousand scattered, hypothetical traditionalists, and not even because he cared, either. He'd do it because it would be fun. 

T'Challa's throat closed up momentarily, but W'Kabi's Kimoyo bracelet beeped and helped to break a small portion of the tension. 

"I am being summoned," W'Kabi sighed, rolling the bead into his palm and bringing up a scowling image of his commander. "And I still have feeding rounds to make before we begin for the day." 

He and T'Challa grasped hands in goodbye before he broke away from Erik's embrace and started to jog away with a hasty " _Ndiza kubona_ " thrown back at them, embroidered blue cape flapping behind him in the warm breeze. 

No sooner had he gotten out of earshot than Erik, unfortunately, shifted his attention back to T'Challa, rounding on his cousin with a dung-eating snigger. "Damn, it's always a shame to see Batman ridin' without Robin," he said. 

T'Challa gave him a dead-eyed stare. "I am sure you think you are hilarious," he droned. He turned his back on Erik and started for the city, turning over the idea of a brief visit with Nakiya before his next observing session at the Tribal Council meeting. 

Erik kept pace with him, to T'Challa's great disappointment. "Ion't even know how y'all gone survive when you go on them Rite of Passage pilgrimages," he said, with a tone of false sincerity. "A whole year without each other? Sounds Lifetime-movie tragic, cuz."

T'Challa straightened his spine and resolved to ignore him, which of course only made Erik try harder to make him rise to the bait. 

"Or maybe they'll let you take 'em together," Erik persisted, "since ya'll already boo'd up or whatever-"

T'Challa finally screeched to a halt just outside the entrance to the city and rounded on Erik with lightning speed, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up in imminent panic. "What are you talking about?" he growled, feeling sweat gather under his armpits. 

Erik's crocodile-like simper was wide and gratified, and much too informed for T'Challa's liking. "Don't play dumb, Tay-Tay." He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to the side suggestively, making his locks slide across his cheek. "I'm talkin' bout you and W'Kabi, out on pilgrimage, gettin' freaky in the bush-"

T'Challa's insides roiled with unease and perspiration trickled icily down his nape. "W'Kabi is my friend," T'Challa started, straining to keep his cool. "He has been my friend since we were babies-"

"Don'tchu mean 'boyfriend'?" Erik cut him off, something like cruelty swimming in his expression alongside a multitude of emotions T'Challa couldn't name. "Man, cuz, just admit it. Y'all faggin' after each other so hard, that shit makes me nauseous." He shook his head. "We should just tell Auntie right now that she ain't gettin' no grandkids from yo ass anytime soon-"

"You are disgusting," T'Challa spat, anger finally bleeding hot and raw through his chest. "and you are wrong. I don't care what your crude mind thinks you see, but _I do not desire W'Kabi_!"

"...T'Challa...?"

_Bast, don't let it be so. Don't let it be him._

For the second time in a span of half an hour, T'Challa's heart dropped out of its place in his torso. His anger dissolved until there was only mortification left, and he turned slowly to face his friend. 

"W'Kabi," he croaked through a dry throat. "W-when did you...?"

The Border Tribe boy's face was stony and set, but his eyes were bright with...with...

"I...I could not find my key to the granaries," he explained quietly. "It is linked to my Kimoyo, and I traced it back here. To...to you two."

"Oh yeah, bruh, I got it," Erik broke in, pulling the small key from one of the numerous pockets in his pants and tossing it to W'Kabi. "You must'a dropped it when you left."

T'Challa recalled the embrace that Erik had given W'Kabi, and knew that his friend had 'dropped' nothing.

_He planned this. He planned all of this._

Caught between the urge to drag Erik off the tallest waterfall in Wakanda by his braids and explaining himself to W'Kabi, T'Challa could only gape, stricken, as W'Kabi caught the key and tucked it shakily into his cloak. 

"I will...take my leave now, my prince," W'Kabi mumbled eventually, saluting stiffly and nearly running away from the both of them. T'Challa heard a strangled noise escape him, and then his friend was gone as quickly as he'd come. 

For a few seconds, he stood there, humiliated and thoroughly outmaneuvered. Erik's smirk returned, making him look like a well-fed jaguar, plump and sated off of T'Challa's misery. 

"See ya at dinner, Tay-Tay," he laughed cheerfully, punching T'Challa twice in the bicep -painfully hard- before sauntering past and into the city, and leaving T'Challa to wonder what he'd done in a previous life to deserve any of this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Yitya ikaka": Eat shit
> 
> "Ndiza kubona": See you
> 
> Please comment!


	3. Act 2b: The Gap (013: 'I Am')

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Erik and T'Challa try to have a good day, fail, and Shuri opens her big brother's eyes accidentally-on-purpose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Venus, is Erik gonna be an unapproachable assclown for this whole story? I won't like that very much."  
> No, lovelies, there will be moments where all you want to do is give him a big ol' hug and NOT a punch. But this isn't your typical fix it. And just remember, he's traumatized and damaged, and no matter how awful he acts, all of his actions have a reason behind them.
> 
> Shuri's age in the last chap has been changed to two, so she's six now. 
> 
> You guys' comments are incredible, hilarious, insightful and a blast to read, so please keep leaving them! They're so inspiring! I only moderated them for this story b/c some other authors in this fandom said they'd been getting friggin' death threats over their content? It is SO not that serious, but I do not have time to entertain that foolishness.
> 
> (I've got the next parts roughly planned out- I think I'll have 3 chaps composed of 6 parts by the time we're done. Start the countdown!)

T'Challa didn't see W'Kabi for nearly two weeks after the mess that occurred with Erik- a very long, unpleasant two weeks. Outwardly he blamed the time lapse on princely obligations, but internally, he knew it was his own cowardly shame that kept him from facing his friend and the consequences of his thoughtlessness.

There was one upside, a slight silver lining if you could call it that- during those few weeks, Erik mostly left him alone. That seemed to be a pattern of his, and not just in his dealings with his cousin. After he had caused a certain amount of ruckus or controversy, Erik usually acted less conspicuously for a short period. It reminded T'Challa of the great pythons that lurked in Wakanda's natural waterways, lazy and full after a large meal, momentarily content as they digested whatever they had devoured and waited for another poor creature to engulf.

In any case, T'Challa decided to make use of the temporary respite to try and salvage whatever fragments of a friendship he still possessed with W'Kabi, if any. On a day when he was certain Erik was absorbed in lessons, T'Challa slipped out of the palace without a guard and made his way back to the border during the hour of which W'Kabi would be tending the rhinos, hopefully alone. 

He was so nervous while waiting his bones ached and trembled in his limbs, and he nearly considered bolting back to the palace a few times. But in the end, T'Challa stood his ground, even when he saw W'Kabi making his way to where T'Challa was positioned. Fortunately, W'Kabi was absorbed in something he was reviewing on his Kimoyo display, and he didn't see T'Challa standing there until the two boys nearly collided with one another.

"W'Kabi?" T'Challa called anxiously, stepping forward to attract his friend's attention. W'Kabi skidded to a halt with a surprised look on his face, mouth open to no doubt make some sort of apology, but when he saw who it was he was facing, his face shuttered into a carefully blank void of expression.

"My prince." he greeted neutrally, downsizing whatever he had been looking at. T'Challa winced at the formal tone, address, and stance, knowing with a sick feeling in his stomach that he deserved most, if not all, of W'Kabi's scorn for what he'd said, and for the way he'd said it.

"I was waiting for you." He began, mouth dry and intestines turning flip-flops every few seconds. 

"Is there something you needed from me, my prince?" W'Kabi asked flatly, folding his hands defensively into his shield-cloak to attempt to hide the way his fingers shook. 

"Please don't treat me like a stranger," T'Challa said, hating himself for sounding like he was pleading. "Will you let me explain what happened?"

A twinge of bitterness turned W'Kabi's lips down at the corners, and he made a grunting sound, not unlike one of the animals he loved so dearly when they were upset. "You do not have to explain anything to me," he sniffed, averting his eyes to his sandals. "You were quite clear last time, and I don't expect anything from you."

They could both hear the unsaid 'anymore' at the end of the sentence quite loudly.

 _Bast damn you, Erik_.

"W'Kabi, you know how Erik is," T'Challa responded, and yes, he was begging, but he couldn't help it. He could see just how much his outburst had hurt his friend, and it left a sharp feeling in his too-soft heart. His father would have frowned at his definitively un-princely actions, but at that moment it seemed less important than righting his wrong. "He loves to antagonize me. I was just trying to make him leave me alone."

W'Kabi was quiet for a few agonizing seconds, and T'Challa's shoulders slumped in defeat, certain he'd failed and lost his one true best friend to his cousin's machinations.

"So...was he correct?" W'Kabi said finally, glancing up at last. T'Challa was too frightened to assume that the emotion he saw in his friend's dark irises was clemency. 

"I...I do not know. Perhaps." T'Challa stammered, tucking his hands into his pockets and giving his head a weary shake as his cheeks burned with embarrassment.

And he didn't know, didn't know what he wanted from W'Kabi, if anything. He hadn't really wanted to face any of this anytime soon, or possibly at all, but he had no choice now. "The only thing I know for certain is that I want you to forgive me."

When next he looked up, a feeling of relief like a tidal wave swept through him- W'Kabi was smiling. It was a small, hesitant smile, but it was a genuine one, signifying a better outcome than T'Challa had hoped for.

"Whatever else might happen between us, you are my friend. Not even your cousin can change that," the Border Tribe boy affirmed, holding out his hand in invitation. T'Challa exhaled in a large gust and returned his grin, stepping forward to press their biceps together warmly. 

They stepped back when both of their bracelets chimed, faces and necks flushed and awkward reassurance emanating from them in waves. 

"I have to head back before I'm missed," T'Challa explained, scuffing the toe of his shoe into the dirt absently. "Najibi'll be furious if she finds out I left without a guard."

"I know," W'Kabi returned, equally chagrined. "I am busy, too. But, I'll...I will see you later?"

"No doubt," T'Challa affirmed, smiling fully for the first time in what felt like months. 

He almost choked on his saliva when W'Kabi, as he turned to leave, suddenly leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to his cheek, barely more substance than a whisper of a touch but one that T'Challa felt all the way down to his toes. 

" _Mhle, mzalwana_!"  he exclaimed as he sprinted away, before T'Challa could respond. 

He returned to the palace feeling like he was walking on air, in a good mood that not even Erik could puncture.

His elevated mood lasted the rest of that day and into the next one, and T'Challa was still grinning secretly to himself at morning meal as he and Shuri waited for their mother to join them in the Queen's private nook, twirling a fork between his fingers. 

"What are you so happy about,  _ubhuti_?" Shuri piped up from her seat, kicking her tiny, bare feet impatiently. "You look like a crocodile, smiling like that."

Shuri might have been shaping up to be a certifiable prodigy, but she was still only six, and T'Challa knew her strange admiration for their cousin sometimes blinded her to his unruliness and led her to take his side on some issues. Also, her intelligence was matched by her mischievousness, and she often liked to instigate his and Erik's conflicts for her own amusement.

"Nothing," he said glibly, sticking his tongue out when she crossed her wide eyes in his direction. "Mind your business, Shuri."

Behind them, the two Dora posted at the door suddenly slammed their spears twice into the floor to announce the arrival of the Queen Mother. Both T'Challa and Shuri instinctively sat up straighter in their chairs as Ramonda swept regally into the room and assumed her seat, directly next to the king's designated position. She nodded to the servants, indicating for them to bring out the meal, then turned to beam at her children.

After hellos were said by all, T'Challa and Shuri dug ravenously into their food while their mother reviewed various documents at her station.

"T'Challa, you seem to be in a better mood today," Ramonda noticed suddenly, glancing away from her papers to fix her son with a searching gaze. 

"I am, Mama." T'Challa said simply. He hoped that his honesty would keep her from digging further into the reason behind his turnaround in mood. 

"I am glad for you, my love." Ramonda replied, surveying him with a gleam in her eye and a smile flickering at the edges of her mouth that made T'Challa wonder just how much his wise mother knew. "You must remember that things are never as terrible as they may seem."

He was friends with W'Kabi again, and the world seemed a little brighter. T'Challa was inclined to believe her.

"I know, mama."

Silence fell for a short period as Ramonda worked and T'Challa and Shuri ate, but it didn't last past a few more collective bites. T'Challa paused mid-chew, with his fork halfway to his mouth, and looked up when he heard his mother give a small exclamation of surprise.

"Where is N'Jadaka? Did either of you see him this morning?" Ramonda asked, gaze darting between T'Challa, Shuri, and the empty chair at the end of the table. 

Shuri only shrugged and busied herself with reducing the passion fruit on her plate to an increasingly unidentifiable mush, scribbling sums and equations in the seedy yellow mess. "No."

T'Challa withheld a flinch when his mother's attention landed on him. "T'Challa? Your quarters are closest."

T'Challa sighed internally and slowly put down his utensil. It had been such a _good_ morning, too... "No. His door was closed and he doesn't let me into his room."

"I see," Ramonda muttered, pressing a slim fingertip to her brow in preparation for what she was about to do. "Would you mind fetching him before your father joins us?"

T'Challa felt his tongue curl in distaste. "Do I have to, mama? Shuri could go..." he offered, practically groaning and dangerously close to whining. 

Princes should never whine, but T'Challa suspected he wasn't a very good prince. Even still, he implored his mother in every way except verbally to reconsider her request. There was no point, as far as he was concerned. Erik never wanted to be around them, so why force him? What sensible person saw the sun in the morning and then wished for rain to come and spoil everything?

Ramonda's lips thinned into a stern line, and her back straightened in a way that made T'Challa's knees feel watery. "T'Challa, I asked you. Go, please, now. Quickly." she demanded, in a tone that left no room for argument.

T'Challa might have been nearly a man, but the mere hint of his mother's displeasure was enough to bring even King T'Chaka, the Black Panther himself, to heel. 

Neither T'Challa nor his vertebrae stood a chance.

"Yes, mama," he mumbled, sliding from his seat and only grimacing fully once his back was safely turned. In the five or so minutes it took him to reach the wing of the palace that contained his and Erik's rooms, he had devised a plan- yell through the door until he received an answer, then retreat before Erik could begin to raise his blood pressure.

A sharp hiss by his ankles made him screech to a halt just outside the threshold of Erik's hallway and jerk his foot back to avoid having his ankle clawed- Tabby had been lurking in the shadows of the corridor, which explained the marked lack of servants down that direction. 

Whether by design or coincidence, or maybe just the humor of Bast, a multitude of cats and felines had made Birnin Zana's palace halls their home since ancient times. Some were from long lines of domestication while others were barely removed from the savannas, but each one had its own unique personality, habits, and preferences. None were ever truly owned, but a few had apparently adopted favorite humans.

Tabby, an old female serval cat with a milky eye, had adopted Erik not long after he'd arrived in Wakanda, and it was just as well- the mangy thing hated everyone else (except, perhaps, Shuri, on good days) and bullied the other cats mercilessly. T'Challa's favorite, a sleek black Mau he'd named Malu, was Tabby's favorite punching bag.

Bast forgive him, but T' Challa despised the wretched little monster in a way he thought he'd never dislike a cat. 

The cat spat and hissed at him as he tried to shoo her away without his pant leg coming away bloody. It was only when he made as if he was going to kick her (he would never have, but Tabby didn't know that) that she finally darted away with one last snarl. T'Challa stepped up to Erik's door once she'd gone, hoping against hope that his cousin would refuse to come with him. 

"Cousin?" he called through the sturdy vibranium enhanced wood, knowing that the lighted pressure panels in Erik's room would react to the sound of his voice. He got no answer, but then that wasn't unexpected, despite the color of the keypad on the wall indicating that someone was definitely inside. 

He raised his arm to knock and was genuinely surprised when the door swung inward on the first tentative press of his fist- it was unlocked, and slightly open. He could hear a rhythmic sort of motion from inside (nothing obviously lewd, thank Bast). 

A morbid curiosity gripped him. Usually, Erik would have told him to get lost by then, and he didn't think his cousin was still asleep. 

"I'm coming in, Erik." T'Challa called through the crack, pushing his shoulder steadily into the door until it opened the rest of the way. 

He had been right- Erik wasn't asleep. The reason for his lack of answers was immediately made apparent by the old school, american style vintage headphones over his ears, connected by a thick black cord to the disk shaped, blue Walkman balanced on his knee that T'Challa recognized as the same one he'd brought with him from California. He was sitting cross legged on his bed in sweat pants and no shirt with his eyes tightly shut, bobbing his head along to the tinny sounds of the music coming through the device. Every few seconds he would mumble a lyric or two, and tap his thumb against the scrap of paper cradled in his hand. 

T'Challa looked closer, and realized that the piece of paper was actually a yellowed photograph that he was too far away to make out. He had no issue, however, making out the metallic gleam of the chain wrapped around Erik's left fist and the small black shape of the ring dangling from it.  

 T'Challa took a step or two closer until he could lay his hand on Erik's shoulder- he did it slowly, but the other boy jumped and flinched from his touch all the same, eyes flying open as every muscle in his body tensed. 

"Erik-?"

"Ay, man!" Erik yelped, jerking away and reaching up to grab his headphones from where they'd been jostled from their perch on his ears. The chain, the ring, and the photo were swiftly covered by the folds of the blanket near his knee in a vain attempt to keep T'Challa from seeing them. "So you don't knock no more?"

"I _did_ knock," T'Challa rebutted. "You did not answer."

Despite his better judgement, T'Challa couldn't stop himself from asking- the corners of Erik's eyes were red and irritated, and T'Challa had seen him shed tears enough times when they were younger to know that something was wrong. 

He bit his lip and sighed internally before letting the question loose, bracing himself for a bitter response. "Are you alright?" 

Predictably, Erik scowled at him, but there was a little less heat in the expression than maybe usual. "What'chu want, man?" he muttered, not even attempting to answer the question. 

Well, he'd tried, hadn't he?

T'Challa clasped his hands behind his back and flattened his face into neutrality. "Queen Mother was wondering where you were this morning. She wants you to eat with us."

He could almost foresee Erik's reply before it formed on his lips.

"I ain't hungry. I'll be at lunch."

T'Challa masterfully hid his irritated frown. "You know you do not want her to come get you. Just this once, can you do something without being forced?"

Erik rolled his own eyes and made motions as if he were about to get up. "If it'll stop you from whinin', whatever. I'm comin'. Do you gotta watch me get dressed, too?"

"No, thank you," T'Challa snipped sarcastically, turning sideways and lowering his eyes to the floor. As he turned, he saw Erik remove his headphones and almost lovingly tuck them under his pillow alongside the ring necklace and the photo before standing and digging through a pile of clothes in the corner for something to wear. 

It was such an uncharacteristically gentle thing to do for his jagged-edged cousin, it caught T'Challa off guard.

"Why do you hold on to those?" he asked, referring to the location of the headphones with a jerk of his head. "We have much better ones, without wires or clunky casings. Shuri could fix them for you if you asked nicely."

Erik pulled a graffiti covered t-shirt over his head and shrugged tightly in a way that made his shoulder muscles ripple, and that did _NOT_ make T'Challa's stomach burn with envy over his own lean profile, or cause him to self-consciously square his own shoulders.

He did  _not_ feel inferior to his cousin in any way, thank you very much, and he most definitely did not have to fight the urge to glance southward to see how they compared there- if Erik had caught him, T'Challa would have willingly thrown himself from the highest point in the palace. 

"Those work fine." Erik grumbled defensively. He almost looked like he was about to say something else, but thought better of it. 

T'Challa dipped his head to the side in a sort of 'whatever you say' gesture. Erik was strange that way- he held on to things from the past even when doing so didn't make sense- probably out of some sense of misplaced spite. "If you say so."

He waited there in silence while Erik scraped his locks into some semblance of order and threw on his holey shorts.

"T'Challa?"

T'Challa blinked, not having expected Erik to want to speak to him again so soon. They'd pretty much exhausted their stores of semi-pleasant words for a while, by his count. "...Yes?" he said, tilting his neck to glance at Erik over his shoulder. 

The other boy was staring stringently at his bare feet, mouth pursed into a little line. "You know what day it is, right?" he asked abruptly, voice strangely rough and...hopeful?

"I..." T'Challa stammered, caught completely off guard.  It wasn't a holiday, or anyone's birthday...

"Ah...Thursday?" he guessed, flinching when Erik blew a gusty snort of out his nostrils.

"Nah shit, Sherlock. That ain't what I meant." T'Challa watched the bulb of his throat bob up and down as he swallowed thickly. "But forreal. Do you know?" The emotion that T'Challa had thought was hope suddenly sounded closer to desperation.

"I... no, I'm sorry. I don't understand." T'Challa replied helplessly, feeling like he was flunking some sort of test. 

When Erik met his eyes, there was nothing but derision left, a shade drawn over his feelings once again. "'Course you don't, Tay-Tay." he said brusquely, scrubbing a hand over the nape of his neck and turning his back on T'Challa. "Get the fuck outta my room."

Stinging from the sudden whiplash, T'Challa drew back into himself. "Gladly,  _N'Jadaka."_ T'Challa growled, putting a mean, unmistakable emphasis on Erik's true name before storming out of the room and kicking the door closed behind himself. 

_Failed again, T'Challa._

He just didn't know. He never knew what to do when it came to Erik, and it was increasingly clear that he might never understand how to coexist with his cousin.

He was so flustered and discombobulated that he actually got turned around on his way back to the dining room, and by the time he found his way again, he made it there just a few moments before Erik entered from the other side of the room.

They glared at each other hotly before taking their seats. While they'd been gone, the King had arrived, and he smiled at each of them in the practiced way he had that said he knew they were at odds, like usual, and he was just choosing to ignore it for the moment. 

" _Mholo ngalentsasa_ , boys." T'Chaka boomed, studying them shrewdly from the head of the table.

"Hello, baba." T'Challa intoned respectfully, touching a salute to his chest. Predictably, Erik barely glanced up from his plate.

"Hey, Unc." 

 _It is a good thing Baba isn't as strict or traditional as he could be,_ T'Challa thought to himself, picking up his spoon.  _Erik would have been banished ages ago._

'Good thing' being a relative phrase, of course. 

"T'Challa. I trust I do not need to remind you what is expected of you later this year." T'Chaka hinted, causing his son to meet his eyes over the modest centerpiece. 

"I know, Father. I'll be ready." T'Challa affirmed, hoping he sounded more sure than he felt. The date of the start of his pilgrimage, the expectation that T'Chaka had mentioned, was drawing closer and closer with each passing day, and the thought of leaving Wakanda for an entire year with only the clothes on his back and not even the common knowledge of his title to protect him was...daunting, to say the least. 

During his travels, he wouldn't be T'Challa, only son of the Black Panther King T'Chaka, elder prince of Wakanda. He'd be nobody, a simple, nondescript wanderer in the word, expected to come back better for it. 

"When you return, it will be time to choose a university." T'Chaka continued. "Have you been thinking on which one you would like like to attend?"

" _If_ he comes back," Erik mumbled snidely into his ostrich egg scramble, causing Shuri to snicker so hard she snorted a bit. T'Challa decided to ignore them as gracefully as possible. 

"Princeton, maybe." T'Challa said, over their giggling. "Or Harvard. Oxford sounded nice in the brochures."

T'Chaka nodded in satisfaction and agreement. "If you will not stay in Wakanda, I would recommend a British institution over an American one."

Ramonda raised an eyebrow at the conversation and shifted the focus to Erik, who was currently making Shuri laugh by flamboyantly mimicking T'Challa's every word and gesture. "What about you, N'Jadaka?" she said pointedly, stopping his antics cold. "It's never too early to start planning your education."

Erik flicked the edge of his plate with his thumb and hunched his neck, clearly uninterested in the topic. "I dunno. I was thinkin' MIT. They got a early admissions program."

T'Challa just couldn't help himself from balking at that point- the statement was so outlandishly confident. As far as he knew, Erik attended maybe five lessons out of ten per week. "You have the grades?" he remarked incredulously.

Erik's head shot up from his meal to glower at him. "You tryin' to say somethin'?" he snapped, cocking his head to the left in a way that meant he was preparing for a fight. 

"Boys," Ramonda cut in sharply, ending the altercation before it could officially begin. "T'Challa, hold you tongue on matters that you have no knowledge of. Zuri assures me that N'Jadaka has done as remarkably in his studies as you have."

T'Challa's cheeks filled with heat at both the admonishment and Erik's smug expression. "Yes, mother. I apologize."

"Actually, Auntie," Erik said, sitting up straighter in his chair. His eyes brightened noticeably, and his tone changed from flippant to smooth and convincing. "I was gonna ask you and Unc about somethin'."

T'Chaka exchanged a quick look with his wife before replying. "And what would that be, nephew?"

"Ode said I had real good potential as a War Dog," Erik said excitedly. "I know ya'll stuck on that college thing, but I was thinkin' that might not be for me. All I need is yall's permission to be a official initiate, and-"

"No!"

All three of them- Shuri, T'Challa, and Erik- were startled by T'Chaka's immediate refusal. The King's fists clenched on the table, right temple throbbing slightly. Even Ramonda looked put off by his sudden vehemence. 

T'Challa and Shuri both looked at Erik expectantly to see his response. The younger boy's mouth hung open for a split second, but he recovered and set his backbone mulishly, eyes narrowing. "Why not?" he asked, an ugly undertone to his voice. "I mean, I'm good at school, but I'm good at fightin' too, and I really like it. I'on't even need no big ceremony. Ode said-"

"Ode is not your king," T'Chaka interrupted, calmer but still visibly agitated. "I have spoken. You are a prince, and Wakanda is better served with a royal mind at its helm than with yet another soldier in its ranks."

Erik's nostrils flared in indignation, and his arguments raised a few octaves in volume. "That ain't fair! We both know I ain't never gon' be king. Why can't I do what I want if none of that royal bullshit matters f'me?"

"I have spoken, N'Jadaka!" T'Chaka repeated, loudly and more forcefully. "You will pursue higher education after your pilgrimage, and though you may continue to train with their initiates, you will not become a War Dog. This is final."

Erik plopped back down into his seat in favor of arguing further, jaw working furiously and eyes ablaze with anger.

T'Challa, though he never would have said it, was at a loss as to why his father was so abhorrent to the idea of Erik becoming a War Dog. It was something violent, yet useful, and it made Erik happy while giving him an outlet, and also providing an excuse for him to leave the country in a few years, for a few _years_ at a time.

It seemed like the perfect solution to everyone's Erik problem, in fact.

They all drifted back to their food and activities for a short while, before the king spoke up again. 

"The induction ceremony for the Dora Milaje initiates is taking place in a few hours," T'Chaka informed them, once everyone's plate was mostly clean. "We will all attend as a family for the formal portion. I expect _everyone_ to be on their very best behavior."

The last part of the announcement was directed first to Shuri, then to Erik, who leveled a sugary sweet smile at T'Chaka that was so far removed from his frustrated silence that it sent shivers crawling down T'Challa's spine. He hoped his father would reconsider his ruling, if only to save them all from Erik's assured malcontent and emotional retaliation.

"No problem, Unc." 

* * *

After their plates were cleared away, everyone split from the table to make preparations for the outing. Ramonda scooped up her daughter before the princess could make a run for it, carting her off to the baths with Shuri's whines and complaints echoing down the hall. Their appearance at the ceremony wasn't meant to be overly formal, but they were supposed to look united and polished, a royal unit. If it were up to Shuri, she'd take a page out of Erik's book and show up in a peacock costume.

By the time T'Challa got back to his room, a servant had already laid out what his mother had expected of him, a deep purple tunic with white stitching over sturdy, casual pants.

He had long since been allowed to dress himself, so he did that quickly and without fuss, then milled around the common areas of the palace as he waited for his family. His mother appeared first, resplendent in a fitted purple gown and matching embroidered  _doek_ headdress wrapped around her flowing grey-black braids, towing an extremely unhappy looking Shuri along in a miniature, childish copy of her mother's outfit, minus the heavy scarf. Her hair had been re-twisted and secured flawlessly into two intricate buns, making her look like an angry mouse. 

T'Chaka, ceremonial bandoleers and _bwaantshy_ wraps adorning his well cut suit, was the last to join them, trailed by Erik, who had altered his outfit to what he determined to be acceptable, meaning it very much wasn't appropriate.

His outfit had originally matched T'Challa's, but the sleeves had been cut off at the shoulder and he'd unlaced much of the beading around his neck, flaying the collar wide open. He'd somehow managed to add a sag to his trousers by removing the elastic. As a finishing touch, he'd wound bright purple threads into his loose topknot of braids, a shocking shade that made T'Challa's eyes water.

Having learned when to pick their battles, T'Challa's parents were resolutely overlooking Erik's alterations. Shuri, of course, was staring at Erik like he was a sunrise. T'Challa rolled his eyes and reached for her hand as the quartet of Dora Milaje that were meant to escort them arrived.

"You know, Wakanda stopped the practice of marrying cousins together centuries years ago," he whispered teasingly, squeezing her fingers. "And I regret to inform you that he is much too old for you anyway, baby sister. But I could deliver your proposal, if you want."

Shuri flushed furiously and kicked the back of his heel with a whispered curse, then flounced off haughtily to walk next to their mother, leaving T'Challa to swallow his laughter all the way to the arena.

* * *

" _Dumisan-i_!" 

" _Dumisan-i!"_ T'Challa echoed, along with the rest of the audience, hands crossed tightly over his chest in a salute to the ancestors. Once he and the rest of his family took their seats, everyone else followed, except for Zuri in the center of the arena and the ten teenage girls standing nervously behind him, barefoot and clothed in white versions of the Dora Milaje uniform. Najibi and her top lieutenants flanked them with varying degrees of pride on their faces.  

T'Challa spotted Okoye at her place as first in line, tallest of them all and top of her class, shoulders back and lip trapped anxiously between her teeth. Her hair, like her sister's, had been undone from the simple initiate style she'd worn for training, wreathed untamed around her head like a halo. 

T'Challa raised his hand off his knee a bit and wiggled in his chair to attract her attention, winking in a supportive manner when she glanced his way. Influential members from each tribe had gathered to celebrate the initiates, including the novice War Dog trainees, headed by W'Kabi. The blue cloaked boys were positioned directly behind their female counterparts, and if looks could kill, they would all have been boiling under Erik's jealous glare. 

Speaking of gazes, T'Challa's heart skipped a beat, then sank, when he realized that W'Kabi's warm stare was in fact directed at Okoye, not him. Their eyes met over her shoulder, and when W'Kabi's smile widened to include him, a tinge of nauseous...something weighed down his emotions.  

Zuri offered a bow to the royal pagoda, then turned to speak to the rest of the assembled audience. "With the approval of our venerated King, T'Chaka, and under the eyes of Bast, she who is above all, we have gathered here in this place today to witness the transformation of girls into women, the rebirth of children into adults, and the formation of a new generation of warriors, pledged to defend Wakanda with a skill unmatched by any in the world!"

On queue, the drummers ringing the outside of the arena started to pound a pulsing beat into their instruments, and the dancers struck up a vibrant, bouncing routine in step with the harmony. Najibi and her soldiers kept time with the rhythm with the butts of their spears, and the entire crowd swayed on their feet and chanted. Zuri waved Okoye forward with an encouraging smile and pulled a blade from his robes that shimmered in the sun. She got down on one knee and closed her eyes, lips parting with a large inhale.

"Now, as you shed all attachments to physical vanity, you give yourself to the throne, to Wakanda, to all of us!"

Zuri circled behind her and lowered the blade to her head, deftly removing a lock of Okoye's curly hair down to the root with a flick of his wrist. The rest of it followed in short order, fluttering down around her knees until, at last, she stood up, completely bald and beaming brightly. 

"Rise, Okoye, successor to the Dora Milaje general! May your blade stay ever sharp, and your devotion to Wakanda ever unwavered!"

Attendants rubbed oil into Okoye's bare scalp and traced the Milaje crest onto her gleaming brown skin with ochre and black paint. T'Challa thought his friend had never looked more beautiful. 

As the second girl stepped up for her turn, T'Challa's eyes alighted on W'Kabi's face once more, and he saw the same sentiment reflected painfully in his friend's expression.

And he wasn't the only one that noticed. Off to the side, a pair of cunning amber eyes saw the entire exchange, and observed in interested silence. 

* * *

"Okoye!" T'Challa exalted, opened his arms as wide as they could go as he jumped from the last step off the pagoda, Erik and Shuri following more slowly behind. The ceremony had ended, and the attendants had cleared the arena of musicians and onlookers. Zuri, T'Chaka and Ramonda had departed back for the palace with Najibi and her soldiers, but they had allowed their children and their ward to stay behind and linger with the War Dog initiates and the newly inducted Dora Milaje, as well as a few scattered, younger audience members. 

"You finally made it! How does it feel?" T'Challa asked, enfolding the grinning girl into his arms. T'Challa had not many close friends in the world, but Okoye was thankfully one of them. Ages ago, as a member of the Dora, she would have been in training to become a worthy wife of the king. But customs changed, as customs do, and T'Challa thought they were much better served the way things were now.

Okoye pulled back from him and laughed, raising her fingers to rub through hair that was no longer there. 

"Chilly," she said cheekily. "I feel like my head is floating away. I thought my knees would give out from fear, but I suppose I should just be happy that my skull was not split open by accident."

They both turned around as W'Kabi trotted up- the border tribe boy had eyes only for Okoye, and T'Challa told himself that he didn't mind. 

"You did great," he said breathlessly. "I like your hair, or you know...how you look now."

" _Enkosi_ ," Okoye thanked him, bumping shoulders with him before turning back to T'Challa and the rest of the king's brood (minus Erik, as he had drifted off to chat with the other War Dog trainees). "We are going to start sparring, now that the adults have left," she told them. "You should stay and join us, T'Challa."

Shuri pulled hard on T'Challa's hand, swinging from his fingers. "I want to watch the fights,  _Ubhuti!"_ she yelped, causing the three teens to shoot her amused looks. They knew _exactly_ why she wanted to watch the fights, and who she wanted to watch in particular. Okoye and W'kabi thought that Shuri's obvious crush on Erik was adorable, and so did T'Challa, for the most part, when it wasn't inconveniencing him. 

"We will stay," he told her. "Go tell Erik."

Shuri took off like a shot, kicking up sand in her wake. She returned with Erik's shirt clenched in her fist and Erik himself stumbling after her with irritated grumbles. 

Once a makeshift sparring area had been swept out in the middle of the arena, Okoye raised her newly gifted spear to call order, still dressed in white and looking like a warrior goddess of old. 

"Now, things become interesting!" she yelled out, to a raucous cheer. "Who will fight, and who will shrink from combat? Test your skills against my sisters and I, and the future War Dogs of Wakanda!"

The small crowd hooted and hollered at her words, and T'Challa felt a wide smile steal over his features, feeling excited and energized despite himself. 

"I'll go first," T'Challa said in an undertone to Okoye, who announced the first match-up gleefully.  

"Our first contender has revealed himself to be none other than T'Challa, prince of Wakanda!" she bellowed dramatically, raising his arm against his will and laughing when he bashfully swatted her away while he removed his shirt and shoes. "But we must have a challenger, so which of you is brave enough to go against the panther cub himself?"

There was a lot of cat-calling, but no one actually volunteered for a long while. "Guess it'll have to be either you or W'Kabi," T'Challa shrugged, beckoning his friend forward. 

However, W'Kabi had no sooner touched his collar than he was pushed aside by no other than-

"I'll do it," Erik grinned, shedding his altered tunic where he stood and tossing it into the sand at their feet. 

_Hell._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Mhle, mzalwana!": Later, brother  
> "Ubhuti": (Big) brother  
> "Mholo ngalentsasa": Good morning  
> Doek: A type of west African headwrap  
> Bwaantshy: ceremonial West African shawl for a head of state  
> "Dumisan-i": Praise the ancestors  
> "Enkosi": Thank you
> 
> (Got too long, had to chop it a little. I'm sorry! The next one won't be nearly as late. Please comment!)


	4. Act 2c: The Gap  (005: 'Opps')

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the last chapter is nearly concluded, and while that occurs, T'Challa stumbles at the edge of the gap, fighting desperately not to slip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N: The rando announcer in the last chapter has been changed to Zuri- a few years after N'Jobu's death, I can see him as the shaman now, trying to atone for what happened, and he needed more presence in this story. I added a little sentence or two to his role in the first chapter as well.)

Erik advanced on him with all the frustration and hostility he carried in his spirit bunched visibly in his muscles, and it took every ounce of spine T'Challa possessed to stop from sliding a foot backwards in an instinctual fear response. 

That particular show of weakness would have been akin to baring his throat to an incredibly psychotic jaguar, and he refused to let Erik even imagine that T'Challa was reluctant to face him on a physical battlefield. 

Someone whistled teasingly in the stands as Erik drew closer and crossed his arms over his sternum, pushing out his lower lip in a taunting pout. "You ain't consent to the match yet," he said. "Y'on't wanna fight me, cuz? I'm hurt."

T'Challa hesitated slightly- just a second more. He wasn't afraid of sparring with Erik, not exactly. He knew his own combat training was just as extensive as Erik's, and he knew he had an equal chance at winning, better than most other people their age would have, even with the extra instruction his cousin sought out from the War Dogs. 

The problem was that the potential win wouldn't come without some sort of loss, because Erik didn't seem to know the difference between 'friendly sparring' and 'fatal ritual combat'. If he accepted Erik's challenge, his odds of triumph were pretty good, but so were the odds of walking away with something sprained, twisted, bleeding, or fractured. 

But backing down in front of everyone was simply not an option, so T'Challa shook himself briskly and nodded. "I consent to the match," he said, loudly enough so that everyone could hear him. 

Okoye and W'Kabi both shot him glances that contained pity, amusement, and concern, then smirked at each other as Okoye lifted her spear once more. "The golden sons will fight!" she yelled, rousing the crowd to an even higher state of excitement. 

W'Kabi hefted Shuri into his arms and backpedaled to where his clan members had gathered at the edge of the stands, smirking and mouthing ' _battle to the death'_ at T'Challa as he went. Had they not been in public, T'Challa would have flipped him a very un-princely gesture. 

They hadn't sparred against each other in a long while, but T'Challa was almost one hundred percent certain that Erik wasn't crazy enough to try and honestly kill him.

Well... perhaps ninety five percent sure.

They squared off about a foot apart from each other, sizing each other up, cataloging every breath, every twitch, every fraction of motion. T'Challa hoped to Bast that he would still be able to walk away from the bout unassisted. He preferred his ankles in one piece, thank you. 

"Last chance to puss out, cuz." Erik muttered in a low tone, rolling his shoulders in a way that was, either unintentionally or not, profoundly menacing. 

"Never." T'Challa huffed, narrowing his eyes, bracing himself on one heel. 

His cousin dragged his tongue over his bottom lip. "A'ight then. Your funeral."

It was Erik who attacked first, because of course it was. 

If T'Challa had ever questioned Erik's intelligence, he was quickly assured of its existence when he recognized his cousin's first tactic. Despite the fact that they used no practice weapons, Erik immediately attempted to exploit the fact that they were both _used_ to fighting with weapons. He brought his fists slightly more together and lowered them before striking one forward, clearly counting on T'Challa's muscle memory to lead his body to think he needed to defend against a spear or bo. 

Had it worked, T'Challa would have instinctively started to grasp for the point of that absent weapon. The error would have only lasted a split second, but it would have been long enough for the second fist to plant itself in his throat. 

Luckily, it didn't.

The crowd squealed and cheered as T'Challa slipped the testing punch and the follow up hold, twisting his body to let the hit glance off his shoulder and provide cover for his left side as he tried to throw his elbow into the back of Erik's head. 

That didn't work either, and the fight only increased in complexity and intricacy from there, almost as though someone was telegraphing their intended movements over their shoulders to each other. They had received the same training, from the same instructors, for the same amount of years- for a long time, as the moves grew more advanced, and the fight dragged on to fill the air of the arena with dust and growls, neither of them seemed to gain the upper hand. 

They knew each other's weaknesses, their hangups, their blind spots. Erik knew that T'Challa was weak in defending his legs and feet, and tried to exploit it at every turn, aiming kicks and strikes at his thighs and calves. Conversely, T'Challa knew that Erik's right eye was weaker than his left, and his defense was correspondingly unbalanced.

It was like fighting a reflection of themselves. Erik was used to his status, reputation and inherent skill frightening and throwing off his opponents, but T'Challa knew him too well to be intimidated into making mistakes or being timid. Rather than let that irritate him, Erik seemed to relish that fact, throwing himself into the battle as enthusiastically as T'Challa thought he would. 

They weren't blessed with Bast's herb- only the King or King regent reserved that honor- but they might as well have been, with the speed and precision of their blows and the way the fight looked from the outside. The crowd and its spectators faded away in a maelstrom of sweat and dirt and determination. 

T'Challa knew the exact moment when Erik tired of the charade of fair engagement, and his bloodlust for a victory took over. It was visible in his eyes, as close as their faces were- a bright bloom of fury and reckless abandon behind his brown irises- and then they were in the dirt, flying backwards as Erik tackled him with a vicious snarl, forearm to his neck, the heavy heat of his body dropping like a ton of bricks on T'Challa's abdomen. 

Even through his momentary panic and affronted feelings, T'Challa kept his wits about him. It was actually easier to overpower an enemy that was on top of you than on equal footing, which he knew well. The second Erik reared back to drive his knuckles into the center of T'challa's forehead, T'Challa fitted a foot into his solar plexus and _heaved_ , trying to reverse his momentum and send him sprawling. 

It succeeded, but only halfway. Erik did go tumbling in the opposite direction, but he maintained control over his descent and managed to fling a leg out to hook the bend of his knee around T'Challa's neck in a crushing, wrenching, hands free chokehold, trying to suffocate him into submission. 

_'If I cannot win against him today, then I WILL not **lose**!'_

T'Challa let out a strangled scream as black spots burst in his vision, rolling his body to the side before Erik's knee could secure purchase around his nape. The hold eased slightly, just enough for him to get his wits back and grab for Erik's wrist in an iron grip. 

T'Challa pushed the ball of his foot into Erik's armpit and flexed his leg with all the strength in his lower half to counter Erik's resistance, pushing his cousin's body away from his own while keeping his hold on his arm. 

They hung- or rather, lay- like that for a few agonizing seconds, wiggling slightly, testing it, knowing that if they fought too fervently against the other person, they'd both be in a world of hurt. If Erik tried to squeeze down with his knee, T'Challa would rip his arm out of the socket and possibly break it if he chose. If T'Challa made a move first, Erik would swiftly cut off his air and knock him out.

It was tied, and T'Challa was satisfied with that- for the moment, anyway.

"A draw!"

Okoye's voice was the first thing that trickled back in to T'Challa's senses once his brain started to cycle down from the adrenaline, and the clamor of the assembled crowd swamped him as he snapped back into the moment. Erik shifted against him as they started chanting their names, and T'Challa swiftly realized something he'd rather not have.

The intertwined positions of the improved holds and the splayed nature of their legs meant that they were efficiently connected at the pelvises, facing different directions, groins smushed and pressed almost painfully close together through the thin, sweat soaked silk of their pants. 

The sheer warmth, hotter than the sun baked material beneath their bodies, made T'Challa's head spin, and when Erik shifted again, his stomach lurched in a way that made him almost feel sick- Erik wasn't wearing undergarments, as far as he could tell. 

And he could indeed tell, because he could feel  _EVERYTHING._ Every ridge, every hard line...every damp place...

_Oh._

His next choked sound had nothing to do with the knee around his throat. T'Challa flung Erik's wrist away and scrambled out from under his leg, scattering sand and getting it into his mouth and eyes with the frantic speed of which he moved. 

_'Oh gods, oh Bast, oh, no...'_

Erik was laughing when they got to their feet, nodding along to the exclamations of his name and shaking sand out of his locks. The fight seemed to have done him some good- a marked difference was notable in the looseness of his body and the lines of his face. The violent workout had exorcised him, as they often did. He threw his arm around T'Challa's shoulders and turned them to face the crowd, pulling faces and throwing up old american gang signs for...some reason.

T'Challa smiled and postured for a bit with him, distantly glad that the lack of a clear winner hadn't further soured Erik's mood. Mainly, though, he was internally frozen, horrified at his body's reaction to that brief... _contact_ with Erik. 

Much like the few times he'd (inadvertently, damn it!) caught a glimpse of W'Kabi changing, the space between his legs had started to throb faintly, enough for the feeling to make itself disturbingly present. 

He blamed it on latent teenage hormones reacting to any amount of touch.

Even so, when when he focused on an image of Erik's face- scowling and male and definitely RELATED to him by blood, the throbbing didn't fade as immediately as T'Challa would have liked. 

In fact, due to the way Erik's lateral muscles slotted near perfectly into T'Challa's due to the way they were standing, sliding together with each movement, it was sort of, maybe--

"Good fight, Cuz," Erik said suddenly, releasing T'Challa so they could walk to the sidelines. The joy of the fight was still visible in the shine of his grin and the glow on his cheeks and in his eyes. He wiped his palm over his forehead to clear it of sweat. "We ain't done that in a while, huh? Maybe you ain't as much of a wuss as I remembered."

T'Challa mentally shook himself and focused on the conversation instead of his disobedient body. "You are very proficient at that, too," he returned, knowing better than to inflate Erik's already enormous ego. 

Erik snorted and rolled his eyes, disdainful. "Nah, man. I'm better than 'proficient' and you know it." He grabbed his shirt from where he'd discarded it and started wiping down his arms and chest, oblivious to the uncomfortable way T'Challa was standing. "I just wish Unc would give a shit. I'm never gonna be king, and I know I ain't supposed to even exist, but damn. He could at least let me do what I'm good at."

Erik was much more toned than W'Kabi, and that was saying something, since W'kabi was engaged in his own training day after day. Why, then, was Erik so much...bigger?

_'Bast, what is **wrong** with me?! We are blood! Cousins! I am just as muscled as he is!_

"That isn't true." T'Challa stammered, averting his eyes to the fight that had taken their place. "If Baba hadn't wanted knowledge of your existence known, he would have left you in America. He isn't that kind of man. He and mother have always valued intelligence over brute strength."

True, things would have been easier if N'Jobu hadn't had Erik... traditionally, lesser members of the immediate royal family were discouraged from having children so as not to complicate succession and introduce threats of war and feuding. Years and years ago, it had in fact been forbidden, but again, times changed.

"You callin' me intelligent?" Erik replied incredulously, eyeing T'Challa sideways. 

"I will never repeat it," T'Challa shot back dryly, "but yes, and I will talk to him for you. Maybe I can convince him better than you can."

It made no sense, really, T'Chaka's refusal. Even if it wasn't the most ideal situation for Erik to become a fully fledged war dog or border soldier, it was the scenario that would make him happy and keep him out of everyone's hair. T'Challa was used to his father being a sensible man- he wanted to know the reason behind the earlier encounter, as well. 

"Aw, you love me that much?" Erik cooed, leaning hard on T'Challa's arm facetiously. 

T'Challa answered honestly, despite his ever rising annoyance. "Maybe."

That seemed to bring Erik up short a bit. "Well...shit. Thanks, Tay." he said, in a slightly quieted tone. 

"Do not mention it." T'Challa huffed. "Seriously, Erik. Do not."

The fights continued, with volunteers participating from the stands. By the time the last few people had gotten thoroughly beaten or had tired of pretending to fight with their friends for laughs, the barest sliver of sun was visible over the sand and twilight was creeping in steadily, washing everyone's faces with shadow and dusk.

"It is getting late," T'Challa said eventually- murmured, really, since he held a lightly dozing Shuri against his chest after having relieved W'Kabi of her some hours ago. "Dinner will be served soon. We should leave."

"You and Shuri can go," Erik told him, from his position at T'Challa's right shoulder. W'Kabi stood to T'Challa's left- ever since the situation with the key, he'd subtly refused to wind up sandwiched between them again in case something else went missing mysteriously from his cloak. T'Challa thought that was a fantastic policy. "I wanna fight one more time."

W'Kabi visibly balked. "With who?" he asked. "Everyone's exhausted."

Ignoring him, Erik raised his hands and cupped them around his mouth. " _Okoye_!" he yelled suddenly, startling the sleepy Shuri into jolting awake in T'Challa's arms. "You wanna make somethin' shake?"

Okoye turned from where she had been lazily watching the last few play fights, and her expression immediately lit up. 

"I hope you mean by sparring," she called back, invigorating those left in the crowd, "if not, you'll be very disappointed, my prince."

T'Challa more felt than saw W'Kabi's tiny bristle when Erik snickered and leered at her with his white wolf's teeth. "I'm down with that, too," he said, "but I yeah, I meant sparring."

"Then you'll still be disappointed." Okoye sniffed, triggering her spear into 'non-lethal' mode, with the deadly tip retracted back into the shaft. Erik's shirt was once again discarded as he stalked into the middle of the sands towards her.  

W'Kabi shifted in a way that was almost nervous. "Is that a good idea? Erik is...Erik," he trailed off awkwardly. 

T'Challa grunted a bit, and ruthlessly quashed the small mutter in the back of his mind that wondered if W'Kabi had been as worried for him as he was for Okoye.

"Okoye can handle herself, and he seems to be behaving today. She won't appreciate you worrying over her, though. She is too strong for that."

"I know that," W'Kabi huffed. "That's not what I meant. He is just so...vicious. I am not sure he knows these are play fights."

Privately, and on any other day, T'Challa would agree. But Erik had been downright tame during their bout. All would be well...hopefully. 

The fight between Okoye and Erik was brutal, but swift. She was the head of her class, after all, and the foremost of the best sect of warriors that Wakanda possessed. It didn't take long for Okoye to break through his defenses and hit him square in the temple with the shaft of her spear, dropping him to his knees with a meaty crack that made everyone gathered flinch.

"And the Dora Milaje trounce another War Dog!" One of Okoye's Dora sisters announced the victory in her stead, and Okoye preened briefly. 

"It is official, then?" W'Kabi whispered to T'Challa, as they watched Erik sway woozily. "Is he set to join us? He mentioned that he would ask the king at our last patrol session."

T'Challa bit his lip before answering. "No...Father refused. I'm not sure why...-" 

"That one was for you, my prince!" Okoye said suddenly, securing her spear by digging it deep into the dirt and turning to face a now slightly blushing T'Challa. "Have I done the royal family proud?"

"Eh? Maybe you'll be a wife of the king after all!" T'Challa laughed, recognizing her fake flirtatious tone for the joke it was. 

The next few seconds happened horrifyingly quickly, but also slowly enough that everyone bore witness to it. 

"My deepest desire, laid bare!" Okoye replied, giddy enough from her win to continue the facade. "If-AH-CK!"

While she and T'Challa had been kidding each other, Erik had recovered his wits behind her, and apparently taken exception to be gloated over in his defeat. While her back was turned, he'd grabbed her spear out of the ground. 

And when she twisted to see what he was doing, no doubt with a reprimand on her lips-

"OKOYE!!!"

-he slammed the butt of it into the side of her face, full force. The crunch of splintering bone was loud and unmistakable, even over the sound of Okoye's body slumping to the ground. 

Both T'Challa and W'Kabi let out horrified, wordless yells as they and the other Dora trainees swarmed the arena in a panic to get to their friend. Okoye was clutching her jaw and rolling from side to side, streams of blood and tears trickling at a worrying speed through her fingers while she choked back groans of agony. There was a strange, ominous divot in the underside of her mandible. 

T'Challa reached her a split second before anyone else, hovering his hands uselessly over her. "Okoye, Bast, are you alright? Can you-?"

"Get back!" W'Kabi yelled suddenly, forgetting himself in a moment of fury by association and shoving T'Challa hard in the chest, away from Okoye. "Control your savage cousin!"

_Savage cousin..._

_'Erik.'_

T'Challa whirled to face the younger prince, fear and shame twisting into an enraged, humiliated sneer. 

"Why?!" he spat. "Why!?"

Everything had been going so well.... 

"She was gloatin'," Erik snarled thickly, eyes unfocused but still managing to brim with indigence. "She busted my shit up, so I busted hers. All's fair in war an' l-"

"Why must you make everything _awful_?!" T'Challa yelled, before turning his back on his cousin and leaving Erik in the dirt- where, in T'Challa's mind at that moment, he deserved to belong. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Just to clarify, Okoye was NOT feeling on T'Challa romantically. The little bit of flirting was completely friendly and platonic, in a joking manner. I don't ship them and I can't see them as being in a sexual relationship, so that's not a factor in this fic.
> 
> Now someone inform Erik before he has a seizure XDDD.
> 
> If anybody is visually confused as to the position T'Challa and Erik were in during the fight, they were basically doing a fancy version of scissoring. So...I guess frotting, but sideways and laying down? Like I said, scissoring with dicks.)


	5. Act 2d: The Gap (003: 'X'+ 'Redemption Interlude')

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Shuri is wise beyond her years, T'Challa listens at doorways, and the word "Marula" nearly kills a prince or two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N: It's a blizzard-y day here in Detroit so I was able to get this finished and posted! 
> 
> Clearly we're going to exceed my initial projection regarding the number of chapters XD. Hopefully none of you mind that we're going over?
> 
> Translations at the end.)

At the resulting reprimand, T'Challa insisted that he be present, and his parents, barely able to fathom anything else past their deep shame and anger, agreed less reluctantly than usual. 

The throne room was emptied of all personnel excepting the royal family (minus Shuri, as she had been excluded since everyone knew she'd try to defend the indefensible) and Zuri, a few feet away from the younger prince as if serving as a sort of guard against the coming silent storm.

The queen mother was standing on the throne dias, and T'Challa stood at his father's knee while the King sat in his tusked ebony chair, the bridge of his nose steepled between his fingers as if Erik's mere presence was causing him a migraine of intense proportions. 

Ramonda started first, after a long, seemingly endless minute of staring with muted anger at her nephew.

"T'Challa told us what happened with the sparring match," she said, tone somehow measured and contained despite the emotion tightening the faint lines on her face, "as did numerous others. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Erik only curled himself inward, continuing to glare vengefully at his shoes. There was no remorse in his form, or even a hint of false sincerity. 

It made T'Challa's jaw  _ache_. 

Ramonda nodded, having expected that. "Fine. Then we will speak." She squared her shoulders and lifted her head so that her silvery braids hung lower around her waist, projecting so that there was no chance of being misunderstood.

"N'Jadaka. Your uncle and I have tried to be patient with you, for many years. We understand that your father's death was a great tragedy, and that your mother's passing was deeply unfortunate. But you have harmfully taken out your anger and grief on nearly everyone in Wakanda."

T'Challa bit down hard on the tip of his tongue to keep himself from adding to her words, knowing his contribution wouldn't be welcome. His role was to observe, not comment, but in his heart he wanted to spit and yell at Erik for dangerously straining T'Challa's relationship with two of his only close friends once again. 

' _Why are you determined to ruin everyone's life?'_ he wanted to snap. ' _We saved you from a horrible existence in America. We are your family. We deserve better than this.'_

"We have tried to engage you in therapy, in constructive healing methods, all of which you have resolutely refused. Your behavior is not befitting of a prince of your station. We will no longer to abide by it, nor will we make any more excuses for your misdeeds. If you continue to act this way, there will be severe consequences." Ramonda continued. "We are your guardians and your blood, but we are also your monarchs. Do not take this warning lightly."

Erik's neck tensed, and in his cloud of malice, T'Challa begged Bast that Erik would throw his caution to the wind and yell at his parents, say something ridiculously disrespectful and get himself exiled for good. He did no such thing, however- only withdrew deeper into himself and stayed silent. So did Zuri, pained as he looked.

The king finally spoke after a while, still seated, still holding his head between his fingers. "You will issue a formal apology to the Dora Milaje for seriously wounding that initiate, and you are confined to the palace for the next two weeks. Is that understood?"

Erik didn't even give the courtesy of an audible reply. He twitched minutely, then jerked his chin to the side in a kind of bare minimum acknowledgement. 

"Then leave us."

And that was that. 

* * *

 ...at least, it was for T'Challa's parents and Zuri. T'Challa, however, felt far from finished with the entire situation. 

As soon as the king and queen left the throne room, T'Challa threw himself down the dias two by two, intending to follow Erik to his room and give his cousin a blistering piece of his mind. 

By the time he reached Erik's hall, he had an entire lecture formed plus a rebuttal and a few choice insults from wrongs and slights that had been building up through the years (that he had mostly let go), but were now prickling at the base of his consciousness. He stormed up to Erik's door, regardless of Tabby or any lingering servants, completely expecting his cousin to have bolted his room shut and locked himself in a fog of self pity and anger.

That was fine- T'Challa was righteously indignant enough to knock until the sun rose, and he intended to do just that until he had said his piece.

Except-

"-time f'you to go to bed, squirt?"

T'Challa was brought up short by what greeted him when he found himself about half a foot from Erik's door. Said door was cracked, and alongside the light that spilled into the hallway, there were voices. 

Two distinct ones, in fact.

"Mama and Baba aren't worried about me," Shuri was saying, because it was definitely her voice emanating from Erik's room, high and coquettish and joyously amused. "They are too busy being mad at you."

He hesitated, swaying forward and back, hand at shoulder level as he debated with himself whether he wanted to interrupt the moment happening beyond the door. 

On one hand...he was still furious, and wanted nothing more than to burst through the door and let his cousin know that in as many words.  On the other hand...

On the other, Shuri was the only person that could ever draw anything comparable to softness from Erik. She was the only one he liked, and the only one he'd ever come close to opening up to. 

The thought of eavesdropping made his stomach turn with unease, But T'Challa slowly lowered his hand as he considered it. 

He was always so lost, so confused when it came to his cousin. Despite the anger, despite the irritation, his deepest desire was and always had been to simply get along with Erik, if not to the degree of brotherly affection, then at least a peaceful ceasefire.

Shuri had somehow figured it out, but she'd never tell him the formula, so to speak, if he outright asked her. His and Erik's confrontations were too amusing to the child that grew bored with her advanced studies within a week. 

She would withhold the secret, dangle it out of his reach to watch him metaphorically jump for it while giggling in glee. T'Challa wasn't quite ready to beg at his baby sister's feet, however. He was older, he had dignity. 

He sucked his lip between the pinch of his teeth and fit his shoulder against Erik's doorjamb, flattening himself as stealthily as he could, as close as he could get to the slight opening. Perhaps...perhaps while talking, Shuri and Erik would clue him in to how to have an actual relationship with his cousin. 

Erik's voice, when it came, sounded tired and gravelly beneath his usual grunting deadpan. "You're welcome, then. Now get out 'fore I sick Tabby on yo little bad behind."

Shuri did no such thing, obviously. "Why did you have to hit her that hard?" T'Challa heard her persist. He could just see her cross legged or upside down on Erik's bedspread, poking him in the thigh with a skinny finger to keep his attention focused. "The fight was over. Why do you always... _do_ things like that?"

Erik's reply was so snappish and irritated, T'Challa briefly feared for his sister's well-being. "Go _away_ , Shuri. I ain't playin'."

Shuri would not be cowed. "T'Challa was upset, too..." she said, stubborn. 

"It's T'Challa's fault."

T'Challa recoiled in silent disbelief out in the hall, bewildered by the sour anger contained in those three words. His fault? How in the hell was any of this  _his_ fault? By his recollection, he and Erik had had a pretty neutral conversation prior to that ill fated last match.

Shuri was just as confused. "How?" she queried, and T'Challa imagined the cogs turning in her brain. Eventually, she reached some conclusion he missed.  "...Is it because he didn't remember?"

_Remember? Remember what?_

Erik's throat was thick with something close to tears. "Nobody did. F-" here he paused and corrected, like he had been about to say a worse word, "-freakin' figures. I'ont know why I expected..."

Bast, what was he _missing_? T'Challa wanted to scream. 

"I did..."

 _I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Just tell me!_  

"'S like he didn't even matter. Unc didn't say nothing, and T'Challa ain't remember, but I know he knew him when we was little. When you're older, you'll get how messed up that is."

Something about someone he had known when he was small? Something his father hadn't- 

_Oh._

' _Uncle N'Jobu...'_

"I remembered," Shuri repeated quietly, "and I brought the candles that sparkle at the ends this year. They're my favorite kind to make. See?"

Birthday...his uncle's birthday. 

Erik's father's birthday. 

_It was today._

His parents hadn't said a word. No one had said a word. And T'Challa had forgotten, the same way he'd almost completely forgotten N'Jobu's face, and the sound of his voice. 

T'Challa felt  _ill._

"...I guess." Erik sighed. 

"You have to start acting good," Shuri told him sagely, after a moment of uneasy rustling. "If you don't, mama and baba will send you away on your pilgrimage early. They told Zuri that, after they yelled at you."

So Shuri was proficient at eavesdropping too, when she needed to be. Interesting.

"'F I act good, you won't like me anymore." Erik replied snidely. "Now c'mon. I'mma light these real quick, you help me sing the song, an' then you stop buggin' me."

T'Challa could only listed, ashamed, as Erik presumably struck up a flame with a lighter and set Shuri's special sparkling candles ablaze. The warm light bent and dipped with their shadows as they got off the bed and shuffled over to the corner. The sounds of their motions were routine, mournful. 

T'Challa slunk away, with a sharp pang in his heart, to the gentle dual melody of 'Happy Birthday' sung half in English, half in Wakandan Xhosa, with Shuri patiently helping Erik through the more complex phrasing. 

_I am so sorry, Erik._

\---

In the months that followed, both Okoye and W'Kabi were noticeably cooler than usual towards Erik after her injuries healed and an apology was made, albeit a horridly insincere and rushed one.

Thankfully, T'Challa's friends had long since realized that Erik's actions were his and his alone, and they didn't hold him accountable for the events at the Dora ceremony. 

Less thankfully, however, was the addition of a new dynamic to their lives, one that T'Challa had been subconsciously dreading for months.

A few days after the ceremony, W'Kabi had told him, stuttering and blushing all the while, that he and Okoye were trying...something. What yet, they didn't quite know, but it was there, and it had potential. 

T'Challa had been...understandably conflicted. On one hand, W'Kabi still intrigued him in ways he was increasingly keen to explore, and it saddened him to think that he may have missed out on something special with his oldest, best compatriot.

On the other hand, he was of course happy for his friends, and a little taken aback by how quickly they had grown close without him noticing. 

Perhaps, if he'd known...maybe he wouldn't have only _glanced_ at W'Kabi. Maybe he would have done more, said more. 

The again, he could have just not been aware of the shifting emotions right outside his scope. Najibi and his mother were always lecturing him about not paying attention to his surroundings. From his listenings here and there, T'Challa knew that T'Chaka thought the problem was tied to his emotions. 

When he found out about Okoye and W'Kabi, T'Challa spent the majority of that day in his quarters, spinning in and out of an ever changing, nebulous mood that no one, not even T'Challa himself, could fathom.

It was during this time that T'Challa fervently, secretly, shamefully wished that he and Erik had a better relationship so that he had some sort of outlet for his confused frustrations, or another person his own age to turn to for advice.

T'Challa had no clue whether or not Erik had experience with romance, or if even his advice was worth listening to. But Shuri was too young, he didn't want to burden his parents or involve them in his personal life, and Nakia was lamenting about her own strife relating to romancing a close female friend, so he languished alone by choice. 

He didn't have long to be disappointed, because his attention was quickly diverted (as young attention spans relating to heartbreak often are) within a few weeks, when a different pretty face captured his eye.

* * *

T'Challa met Akinyi directly following an informal  council meeting that they had both been observing. He had noticed her during the proceedings, standing silent and attentive at the arm of the seated Mining Tribe matriarch, but there was no chance to speak with her before things had commenced. 

After, once proceedings broke and the king began to take one on one audiences, T'Challa found himself in the nebulous 'not sure if I can leave, not sure I want to stay' states that he despised. 

He was reminded, very suddenly, of the other teens' presence when a pair of hands descended over his eyes, startling him halfway to death and forcing an unattractive squawk from him.

" _B-B-! Bast_ -!"

" _Ikaka engcwele!"_ the girl laughed, stepping back from him as he whirled and sputtered. "I never knew the prince was so jumpy!"

"Are you Arusi's granddaughter, then?" T'Challa asked. The resemblance to the Mining Tribe's matriarch was clear in her even brown tone and high rounded cheeks, but her eyes were a light hazel all her own.

The girl grinned, popping a dimple in her cheek that, quickly and strangely, reminded T'Challa of Erik. 

"Niece," she corrected good-naturedly, "and heir. My father, her oldest brother, died in the bombing all those years ago and the younger two brothers both like men, as men sometimes do."

She said this very frankly, and abruptly. T'Challa was stunned into blurting-

"B-but where is your mother?"

The girl nodded, as if she'd been expecting him to ask. "She died from a genetic disease when I was young. Something that even Wakanda's medicine could not help. I have made my peace with it."

T'Challa flushed hot, brain finally catching up to his mouth. "I am sorry," he tried, "I should not be asking you about such tragic things."

She shrugged, making the thick braids slung over her shoulder sway, and T'Challa noted that the other side of her head was shaved in patterns. Gold hoops glittered from where they'd been strung through the tight patches of shaped curls. 

"Do not be. We have just had the hardest conversation we are ever going to have. Now we can skip to being friends. That's better, is it not?"

The smile she flashed him was dazzling. T'Challa felt himself drawn to the gleam. He could see himself reflected in it, shy but handsome, perhaps, tall and lean and dark-skinned and polished.

"Allow me to formally introduce myself, then," he heard himself saying, gripped by a confidence he couldn't understand. "My name is T'Challa."

She did a fluttery little curtsey that his stomach mimicked. 

"Akinyi."

* * *

Akinyi became a constant figure in T'Challa's life even after his observatory period in the council ended. They sought out each other's company whenever they could, usually to seek reprieve from the heat by swimming in the garden leisure pools.

For the record, Akinyi was the one to suggest swimming as an activity, although T'Challa was never one to miss admiring her when they went. The soft curves of her bathing suit stirred similar feelings in him that W'Kabi sometimes had, but different, sharper, more urgent and foolhardy.

In all honesty, she made him urge for things he had no name for, to want things he couldn't describe. 

She was mischievous and clever and funny and gorgeous, so naturally, T'Challa tried his damnedest to keep Akinyi away from Erik. He hadn't decided whether or not to try and proceed with her, or if she even liked him in that way, and having Erik scare her off with his instability was the worst case scenario. 

But despite T'Challa's best efforts and hopes, Erik and Akinyi crossed paths a few times both around him and not, and though nothing happened that made him suspicious or wary, he never liked the way Erik's eyes glinted when her name was said. 

* * *

 

_ (a few months later...) _

" _ERIK!"_

His cousin's name echoed off the high walls and ceilings of the palace and T'Challa stormed through it, power walking as quickly as he was able in his stiff ceremonial suit. 

All the important families of the tribes had gathered that day for the  _Ukunikezelwa,_ or 'Presentation', where heirs of the families that wished to participate  were presented as potential betrothal options. 

The proposals were never taken or offered seriously, more of a traditional gesture of homage than anything else, and participation wasn't forced. But it was seen as a holdover of the old ways of Bast.

For a marriageable member of the royal family not to attend would be seen as an enormous affront to the tribes, and of course it was, because why the hell else would Erik not show up, therefore causing T'Challa's humiliated parents to send him on a wild goose chase tracking down his kimoyo beads?

"ERIK! Mother and father are going to kill you for this, and I am going to cheer them on!"

T'Challa was so irritated he could hardly focus on the map pulled up on his arm, and the pinging red dot he was following down a conference hall corridor.

Every door was open except for the last one, and that's where the bracelet indicated Erik was. 

T'Challa snorted loudly and barged himself directly through. "What the hell you're even doing down here is beyond any sa-"

The moan began the moment he started talking, so it didn't stop him by the time he'd already seen. 

"A _h_ -!  _Yam Nkosana..."_

_Akinyi?_

_...upside down?_

Except she wasn't, not really. She was laying horizontal, facing away from the hall. Her head dangled between her elbows, one hand splayed on the table she was stretched out on, the other holding the hem of her skirts up. Her feet kicked freely, spread wide to...

 _to_... 

 _"_ You mind, bruh?"

_(-to accommodate his FUCKINGCOUSIN because is that Erik down there, it is, he was TOUCHINGHERHEWASMAKINGHERMAKETHATSOUNDBASTIWILLMURDER-)_

"T'Cha-!"

T'Challa turned, and walked out. 

His body's first instinct was to remove himself from the conflict.

His mind, blessedly, had apparently registered a few of his father's lessons in diplomacy and decorum, because though he instantly was overhauled by a very frightening desire to commit homicide, his brain sort of... shut down in response, growing dormant in a way that almost chilled him distantly. 

_'It's a special day. Don't ruin things for mama and baba further. Later, T'Challa.'_

"I...I'm so sorry, my prince. We... he just..."

Akinyi had followed him out, and he hadn't even noticed. She stood behind him then, smoothing her dress and searching desperately for an excuse. 

T'Challa straightened and blinked the residual moisture from his eyes. He swallowed a few times and when he spoke, he didn't whimper. 

She wasn't his girlfriend, officially. There was no actual reason for him to be upset, or for her to be guilty. 

But they both knew why what she'd done was unacceptable. 

"It's... alright, Inyi. No hard feelings, yeah?" he said, giving her a smile that hurt his entire face.

Akinyi's answering smile was watery and weak. Had she looked beautiful to him before? With her lips swollen, and the rings in her hair in disarray, and her dress askew, she looked cowardly and pale. 

"You're so sweet, T'challa. I would never have deserved you anyway." 

She skimmed her fingers along his shoulder as she darted past him, and the touch stung like a hornet. As soon as she turned the corner, T'Challa took off in the opposite direction back to the throne room, knowing that if he let himself think, it would be the end of him.

\--

The assembly had broken for a light lunch due to Erik being missing, so T'Challa's arrival went mostly unnoticed. He reached his scowling mother within seconds, seemingly, and opened his mouth to be excused literally three heartbeats before Erik caught up to him. 

T'Challa didn't turn to face him, but his presence prickled the back of his neck like a rank odor. Erik actually had the audacity to clap a hand on his shoulder and  _squeeze,_ the hard gesture muting him for a split second. 

' _Special day. Special day... Don't ruin it, don't...'_

"Mornin', Auntie. You got the beauty of Bast on you today." Erik was saying sweetly, offering a 'butter wouldn't melt' smile to T'Challa's mother. 

Ramonda was understandably thrown off by Erik's sudden compliment and winning grin. "Why... thank you, nephew."

"You got to be using that new Marula scrub N'Gali cooked up," Erik continued, keeping T'Challa rooted to the spot with his unforgiving hold, "got you smelling all nice. Unc better watch out."

The Queen Mother's eyes narrowed a bit, but the corner of her mouth pulled upwards, pleased and a little charmed despite herself. "Flattery does not erase your being late for this event, N'Jadaka. Get to your spot and we will discuss this later."

She turned and signaled to her husband, and T'Chaka brought the assembly back together with a shout and a clap. 

T'Challa took his place on the throne dias, Shuri to his left and Erik to his right. They were matching, all three of them, a set of poised royal children externally. 

Internally, T'Challa was spiralling just under the surface. Like with most things, he knew in his heart that what Erik did wasn't accidental. 

If he could just hold it together until the presentation was over. Then, maybe-

Beside him, Erik inhaled deeply. His eyes were focused forward as the Merchant Tribe announced a girl draped in silvers and blues, but his attention was trained on T'Challa.

"Hm. Marula...you know who else smell like Marula, Tay-Tay?" Erik hissed.

T'Challa reached down and grabbed Shuri's hand for stability, trying to concentrate only on the warmth of her skin. She shot him a quizzical look, but he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge it, or anything, really. 

"Inyi," Erik muttered, clearly enjoying himself. "Inyi smell like Marula."

"Shut up."

The command fought its way free of T'Challa's cemented teeth. A slow bleed of rage and heartbreak and venom had begun to seep, anuerism-like, from the blockade he'd placed around his emotions, and he scrambled to stem it. 

If T'Challa was currently fire, Erik was an overjoyed pyromaniac.

"That's how I know where auntie got it from," he kept going, "cause Inyi use it, too. Said she put it on just f'me."

" _Shut up_!"

T'Challa's hand tightened around Shuri's, and she made a soft noise of pretest that drew Ramonda's sharp eye to them. 

"What is the meaning of this?" she breathed sternly. Next to T'Challa, furthest from her, Erik was still talking, and T'Challa was losing it. 

"Tastes just like Marula, too. That's where the sugar comes in...Shit's so good when they sweat-"

"Erik-" T'Challa snarled under his breath, feeling the bleed slosh and roil in his skull. His throat hurt. His eyes itched. 

"Aw, Tay, you should'a told me you liked her, man..." Erik chuckled, stretching out a kink in his neck and dragging his tongue along his bottom lip.

_His mouth...is damp._

"..-orreal. I'da fucked her a loooong time ago-"

The bleed imploded, and nearly 6 years of anger and sadness poured out of T'Challa's cells like an invisible deluge. He just managed to drop Shuri's hand before he crushed her bones, but that freed up his to curl into a fist, one that found Erik's filthy mouth dead center on the first punch. 

T'Challa felt his knuckles split and tear and heard everyone gathered in the throne room gasp and yell,  but he didn't stop, caught up in a whirlwind of repressed feeling and out of body anger. The spray of blood from cut flesh and broken teeth made something dark and horrible inside him twist and purr, before Erik let out a battle cry and leapt at him, taking them both off the dias and sending the air wheezing from T'Challa's chest. 

* * *

 

The rest of the fight and the presentation was a botched blur that later, T'Challa felt horrible for. 

An informal hearing was held, and T'Challa wasted no time in informing Zuri and his parents what Erik had done and how he'd instigated the fight. 

T'Challa was by no means off the hook, but Erik was the immediate problem, and it was no surprise to anyone when T'Chaka stood by his wife's earlier proclamation- they had, in all fairness, warned him beforehand. Shuri was devastated, but even she knew better than to throw a fit. 

Unable and unwilling to even share palace space with Erik, T'Challa chose to sleep at W'Kabi's (with a set of Milaje in the immediate area the whole night, but his friend was long used to that.)

T'Chaka found his son in one of the palace greenhouses early the next morning, damp with dew and slumped with fatigue, sitting on the edge of a bench, half encompassed by an Acacia bush with his knees up to his chest. 

"Will you come in, T'Challa?" he asked. 

"Is he gone yet?" T'Challa replied viciously, and his father sighed heavily, lowering himself to share the bench. 

"Not yet, no. Zuri is still preparing him for the journey." T'Chaka told him.

"Alright, well. Tell me when he's gone, and then I will come in." T'Challa stated firmly. 

T'Chaka appraised T'Challa silently for a moment, then clicked his tongue. 

"Ah, my son. When your uncle and I were young, we did not get along very well either."

T'Challa grunted in response, thinking that N'Jobu could not have been worse than Erik.

He was also surprised to hear his father talking about N'Jobu. T'Chaka almost never did so. 

"That may be true, baba, but Erik hates me as though I have done him some great wrong." T'Challa countered, his words growing hotter and more impassioned the longer he spoke. "Always, this has been so. I am convinced you brought the wrong child back from Oakland. No one with Wakanda's blood should be so _evil!"_

He winced back when he realized his voice was beginning to echo back from the glass walls, and he heaved his own frustrated sigh. 

"I have only ever tried to be his brother," T'Challa finished morosely. "You said it would get better, baba. It hasn't. I do not think it ever will."

T'Chaka laced his fingers with T'Challa's, the way they used to do so often when T'Challa was smaller.

"He is...your uncle's son," he said, every word hung with pain and memory, "as surely as you are mine. You may not see it, but I do. More and more, every day." The king shook his head. "I fear your uncle and I have passed our burdens on to you and N'Jadaka."

"He has no burdens," T'Challa scoffed. "He lives here, in Wakanda, as a prince."

T'Chaka stood slowly and glanced at a few messages that had alerted his kimoyo before continuing to speak to his son. T'Challa didn't look up, or move. 

"Zuri tells me that he is almost ready to depart," T'Chaka said. Then, a little more gently;

"T'Challa. You should see him off. There is always the chance, on pilgrimage, of never returning."

With that, the king departed, leaving T'Challa to stew in his muddled mess of feelings. 

* * *

 By the time T'Challa made it to the frontmost hall of the palace, the goodbyes were almost over and the sun was close to fully risen, bathing everything a multitude of colors. 

T'Chaka stood solemnly back as a sleep-eyed Shuri, clinging to Ramonda's hip, released her snotty choke hold on Erik's neck (after, T'Challa noted, slipping something small, shiny, and blinking into his rucksack, unbeknownst to their parents).

T'Chaka stepped forward, and he and Erik faced each other for a long time without speaking. Their exchange was too muted for T'Challa to hear properly, but it didn't look like it went well. At the end, Erik squared his shoulders and T'Chaka dismissed him with a nod. 

Once the king and queen left, Zuri approached and handed Erik a second, smaller backpack, talking to him- or rather, at him- until Erik mumbled something and patted Zuri's shoulder unconvincingly.

Then it was just T'Challa and Erik, both of them with arms crossed and mouths set. 

"' _T'Challa told us...'_ ," Erik mocked, high and whiny, starting up right out of the gate. "I feel like I been hearing that shit all my life. You ain't nothing but a snitch, Tay-Tay."

T'Challa felt his nails dig into his palms, deep enough to draw blood.  

"Daddy dearest force you to see me off?" Erik continued. "Or you just needed one last look?"

Still raw and hurting from the events of the day before, T'Challa didn't try to stop his sneer. 

"He mentioned you might die," he replied acidly, "so I figured I should at least be able to help identify your corpse. Either way, I get peace and quiet, so I'm not complaining."

Erik gave him a grimacing smirk, and T'Challa saw with a jolt that the two bottom teeth, the canines he'd broken with his own fist just yesterday, had been replaced with golden caps- _golden_ , not vibranium, or at least colored to look golden. 

_When did he-?_

It made him look like-

"That's what you're hopin' for?" Erik retorted, advancing on him until they were barely half a foot apart. "That I get jammed up out here like my pops?" His amber eyes were hard, and a droplet of blood clung to the corner of his chin. "You think Klaue gon' put a bullet in me, too?"

The way he said it made T'Challa wonder if Erik was asking, or _hoping._

_I..._

_Something...strange is happening._

His body was misbehaving again. 

"Y-you'd be too hateful to die, if he did," T'Challa shot back, repressing a tiny shiver. 

Erik huffed out a vindictive, snorting laugh, and T'Challa smelled the iron on his breath, along with the sharp bite of metal. 

"That would be a huge bummer f'you, wouldn't it?" Erik rocked on his heels a bit, then slouched backwards and turned for the exit. "Later, nigga."

T'Challa blinked, swayed, coughed, and relaxed, rolling his eyes as he himself turned to leave.

"Ay'yo, Tay?"

"What!?" T'Challa snapped, whirling around like a prodded bird. "What, Erik, what _n_ - _?!_ "

His mouth flooded with the taste of iron and flesh and _heat_ and  _wet, sharp, oh-!_

And then Erik was gone, taking T'Challa's real first kiss with him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations
> 
> "Ikaka engcwele!": Holy crap  
> Yam Nkosana: My prince
> 
> (A/N: Chapter titles now include songs from the album that match the overall theme of that section! I thought it would be a cute thing to do. Kendrick slapped on that album, it really enhances the story...just sayin'.
> 
> This one was kinda filler and a lot of introspection, I think. I tried to make it as interesting as I could with the fight and the psuedo exile. Also, I stan bisexual Nakia cause what boss bitch isn't comfortable enough with herself to like girls?)


End file.
